Redress of Grievance - What's That?

Cook contends that the Registry of Election Finance erred by unlawfully and summarily dismissing the Sworn Complaint at it's monthly board meeting of the members of the Registry, because the filing of the nonfraudulent complaint is constitutionally protected, as a petition of Redress of Grievance. Requires notice and opportunity to prepare to be heard.

As the United States Supreme Court has held, the right to petition for redress of grievances is "among the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the bill of rights." See United Mineworkers of America, District 12 v. Illinois State Bar Association, 389 U.S. 217, 88 S.Ct. 353, 356, 19 L.Ed.2d 426 (1967). Inseparable from the guaranteed rights entrenched in the first amendment, the right to petition for redress of grievances occupies a "preferred place" in our system of representative government, and enjoys a "sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious intrusions." Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 65 S.Ct. 315, 322, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945). Indeed, "[i]t was not by accident or coincidence that that rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guarantee with the rights of the people eaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances." Id. at 323. Moreover, the Supreme Court has held expressly that the first amendment right to petition protects the individuals right to file an action with a "reasonable basis" in a state tribunal. Bill Johnson's Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, --- U.S. ----, ----, 103 S.Ct. 2161, 2169, 76 L.Ed.2d 277 (1983).

Cook has genuinely attempted to protect his rights through the orderly pursuit of justice--the filing of a citizen complaint with a reasonable basis, with the proper authorities.

NOTE:

Likewise, we [the U.S. Supreme Court] consider it irrelevant to the applicability of the right to petition that its exercise might have the effect of causing professional injury to the official about whom complaints are made, or even that the complainer may be aware of or pleased by the prospect of such injury. Whenever substantial charges of any credibility are made, a shadow of doubt, at least, may fall upon their object. This effect follows too naturally from its cause for its presence to vitiate the propriety of the use of First Amendment rights, if those rights are to retain meaning. The possibility that a citizen who feels himself to have been abused by a particular federal official may take satisfaction when the official gets his perceived due is too human for First Amendment protection to depend on its absence.

Accord Bill Johnson's Restaurants v. NLRB, --- U.S. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 2169.

Respectfully,