The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-05-30
THE MEDICAL REGISTRATION BILL.
[coNTINgED FROM FIRST pAsE.l

therefore much more likely to contain errors
than the certificates of the presiding officers
are to be untrue. Moreover public policy
requires that the enrolled statutes of our
State. fair upon their faces. should not be
put In question, after the public have given
faith to their validity. No man should be
required to hunt through the journals of a
legislature to determine whether a statute,
properly certified by the speaker of the house
and president of the senate and approved by
the governor, is statute OF not.
The enrolled act il public law, and the
original. If private act, have always been
held in England to be records Of the highest
order, and If they carry no death wounds"
in themselves, to be absolute verify and of
themselves conclusive.
In King v. Arundel, Hob. los, the validity
of an act of parliament came in question be-
cause of a suggestion that, although the act
made no mention of provisO, yet the in
dorsement upon it made in the lower house
indicated its passage in that house with a
proviso and that It had not received the
assent of both houses without the proviso.
The act, being private act, as customary,
had been properly filed with the clerk of
parliament and by him labelled and sealed,
but not enrolled as public acts are, and
thereby became the original record
The lord chancellor and chief justices
sought information from the original act and
the journals of parliament and said:
"Now journals are no records, but remem-
brances for forms of proceedings TO the record ;
they are not Of necessity, neither have they al
ways been. They are like the dockets of pro
notarles or the particular to the kings patent
Co; Lib. 2. "a, b. and 10 Elz. 1871, Of the parti-
yon be judged by the journal, it was large and
well occupied parliament, yet because no act
passed nor record is Of it, it was resolved by all
the Judges to be no parliament.
Ihe journal is OF good use for the observation
OF the generality and materially OF proceedings
lQterCOurSlS hpfpppn ha two
the like; but when the act is passed, the Journal
is expired And in this journal there appears but
the record of the act itself carry its
death wound in itself. then it is true
to the original act or to the exempllhcation of it
VIII not serve as in the II. VII Is. when the act
was by the King with the assent OF the lords
lomitting The eommons,) and was judged there
fore void. And he that observes the case of So II.
VI, IL, which was the only ca Sc relied upon by
defendants counsel, shall find il so and upon this
rule the doubt TO be conceived. schH, upon the
Parliament roll itself, not upon the Journal"
The two leading cases in this country that
hold TO this doctrine ale Pangborn v. Young.
~ N. J.; l.: 20, and Sherman V. Story. 80 Cal.
253. The New Jersey case so carefully con-
slders the question and reviews the authori-
ties that its conclusion is irresistible, that
under a constitution like our own, an en-
rolled statute can not be set oside by resort
to Journals of the legislature or other parol
oflueuCt. Liz court says:
"The court cannot try issues of fact; nor with
any propriety, could the existence of statutes be
made dependent upon such Investigations With
regard to matters of fact judicial unity of opin-
ION could be expected, and the consequence would
necessarily be. that the conclusion of different
courts, as TO the legal existence of laws from the
same proofs, would be often varient, and the same
tribunal, which today declared statute void
might tomorrow be compelled under the effect of
additional evidence, to pronounce in its favor
The notion that the courts could listen upon this
subject TO paro proof is totally inadmissiable and
II therefore unayoidably results that if the jour-
nal Is TO be taken into consideration at all, its
effect is uncomfortable; neither its frauds can be
exposed, nor Its errors cOrrecJed,n
"The prerogatiyes, to make, to execute, and to
expound tbs laws must reside somewhere De-
posltarles OF those great national trusts must be
depositarles may betray the confidence
thus reposed In them. In the frame
OF our state government, the recipients and or
gans OF this e-fod power are the legislature.
ate in all things equal and independent; each,
within Its sphere is the trusted agent of the Dub.
lie. With what propriety then is it claimed that
the JUDICIAL branch can erect itself into the custO-
dlan OF the good faith of the legislative depart
ment? 1t is TO be borne in mind that the point
now touched does not relate TO the capacity TO
pronounce law, which is admitted to have been
enacted void by reason Of its unconstitutionality
mat Is clearly function of judcature But the
propositlon is, whether, when the legislature has
certlned 10 mere matter of fact relating to its
own conduct and within its own cOgniZance the
courts OF the State are al liberty TO INQUIRE into
or dispute the veracity of that certificate? can
discover nothing in the provisions of the constiti
ton, or in the general principles of government.
which VIII Justify the assumption of such superior
authority In my opinion the power to certify TO
the public laws itself has enacted is one of the
rIsts OF Inc constitution to the legislature of the