Opinion ID: 1303274
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: change in purpose challenge [24]

Text: The Hobbins plaintiffs also challenge the statute on the ground that its purpose was changed during its passage through the Legislature. They point to Anderson v Oakland Co Clerk, 419 Mich 313, 329; 353 NW2d 448 (1984), as establishing that the objectives of that provision are to preclude last-minute, hasty legislation and to provide notice to the public of legislation under consideration.... The provision is integrally related to the five-day rule of art 4, § 26, which states that no bill can be passed until it has been printed or reproduced and in the possession of each house for at least five days. They maintain that those principles have been violated in this statute. After the bill was introduced, the Legislature amended HB 4501 to add a provision criminalizing assisted suicide. The Hobbins plaintiffs say that this amendment dramatically changed the purpose of the original bill, which was to create a study commission. Thus, it is argued, the Legislature was able to enact a law making assisted suicide a criminal offense without giving the people an opportunity to be heard on this highly charged and emotional issue. Looking at the legislative calendar for the day on which the amendment was made, the Hobbins plaintiffs find reference only to an act to create the Commission on Death and Dying. In response to the prosecuting authorities' argument that the later enactment of 1993 PA 3 cured the defect, the plaintiffs maintain that the argument is structurally unsound and misstates the effect of the reenactment of an amended law. They contend that the constitutional violation was complete when 1992 PA 270 was enacted, and that 1993 PA 3 merely amended the former act in minor respects and gave it immediate effect. The argument by the plaintiffs fails to take into account that the criminal penalties for assistance to suicide were an interim measure tied to the Legislature's continuing consideration of issues related to death and dying, including those to be covered in the report of the commission. Thus, the penalties can be viewed as simply providing a stable environment while the Commission on Death and Dying, the Legislature, and the citizenry studied these questions further. Moreover, cases interpreting the change of purpose clause indicate that the test for determining if an amendment or substitute changes a purpose of the bill is whether the subject matter of the amendment or substitute is germane to the original purpose. [25] The test of germaneness is much like the standard for determining whether a bill is limited to a single object. As we held above, the creation of the commission and the provision of criminal penalties were appropriately placed in the same bill. We also agree with the prosecuting authorities that any problems with the enactment of 1992 PA 270 were eliminated with the enactment of 1993 PA 3. The plaintiffs do not claim that the later act is independently subject to attack on a change of purpose ground. It is a basic principle of statutory construction that an amending statute replaces the former provisions. As we explained in Lahti v Fosterling, 357 Mich 578, 587-588; 99 NW2d 490 (1959): This Court in People v Lowell, 250 Mich 349, 354-356 [230 NW 202] (1930), said: An amendatory act has a repealing force, by the mechanics of legislation, different from that of an independent statute. Repugnancy is not the essential element of implied repeal of specifically amended sections. The rule is: `Where a section of a statute is amended, the original ceases to exist, and the section as amended supersedes it and becomes a part of the statute for all intents and purposes as if the amendments had always been there.' 25 RCL [Statutes § 159], p 907. .. . Nevertheless, the old section is deemed stricken from the law, and the provisions carried over have their force from the new act, not from the former. 1 Lewis, Sutherland Statutory Construction (2d ed), § 237. It is plain from the authorities in this State and elsewhere that the effect of an act amending a specific section of a former act, in the absence of a saving clause, is to strike the former section from the law, obliterate it entirely and substitute the new section in its place. This effect is not an arbitrary rule adopted by the courts. It is the natural and logical effect of an amendment `to read as follows.' It accomplishes precisely what the words import. Any other construction would do violence to the plain language of the legislature. 1993 PA 3 amended each section of 1992 PA 270, and the entire text was reprinted and reenacted. The enacting clause stated that those sections were amended to read as follows.... Further, it is clear that an amending statute can remedy a constitutional defect in the original act. As noted in 1A Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction (5th ed), § 22.04, p 182, [s]ome courts have indicated that an unconstitutional act is legally nonexistent and cannot be given effect by an attempt to amend it. However, as the treatise goes on to explain: A majority of courts seem to have rejected the theory that an unconstitutional act has no existence, at least for the purpose of amendment. The unconstitutional act physically exists in the official statutes of the state and is available for reference, and as it is only unenforceable, the purported amendment is given effect.... This escape from the legal fiction that an unconstitutional act does not exist is sound. That fiction serves only as a convenient method of stating that an unconstitutional act gives no rights or imposes no duties.... Amendment offers a convenient method of curing a defect in an unconstitutional act. [ Id. at 183.] This principle has been followed in Michigan cases, [26] and is fully applicable here. The statute under which defendant Kevorkian has been charged is MCL 752.1027; MSA 28.547(127), as amended by 1993 PA 3, which was not enacted in violation of the change of purpose clause. Accordingly, we would hold that the assisted suicide provisions of MCL 752.1027; MSA 28.547(127) are not void by reason of violation of Const 1963, art 4, § 24.