Opinion ID: 1402780
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Preamble

Text: ¶ 25 Petitioners' first contention is that the preamble to the EPA violates the separation of powers clause of the Arizona Constitution. Ariz. Const. art. 3. In relevant part, the preamble provides: C. ... When the legislature adopted the common law to provide the courts with laws of reference, it did not intend to vest the courts with the authority to establish new causes of action or to independently set forth the public policy of the state.... D. It is the intent of the legislature to establish that the courts cannot create new causes of action. Courts can apply common law causes of action to cases they adjudicate provided that they do not expand, modify or in any manner whatsoever alter the common law causes of action that were adopted by the legislature pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes section 1-201. Employment Protection Act, Ch. 140, § 1, para. C & D, 1996 Ariz. Sess. Laws 683, 684. ¶ 26 The quoted language would leave the Arizona courts with no authority to develop, modify, or expand the common law. Law in Arizona would become uniquely statutory. Declaring that courts are established to adjudicate cases by applying the laws enacted by the legislature to the facts of those cases, id., para. C, and that the adoption of the common law at the time of statehood was merely to provide courts with laws of reference, but not ... to vest the courts with the authority to establish new causes of action, id., the legislature boldly, though erroneously, asserts that this court was without constitutional authority to render its decision in Wagenseller. See id. We reject such assertion as constitutionally infirm. Courts do make law. See A.R.S. §§ 1-201 (1995), 12-122 (1992). The common law is and has been a product of the courts for hundreds of years. To adopt the common law is, by definition, to adopt the plenary role of the judiciary in its continuing development. ¶ 27 Courts also participate in the development of public policy. See Wagenseller, 147 Ariz. at 378, 710 P.2d at 1033; Ontiveros v. Borak, 136 Ariz. 500, 504, 667 P.2d 200, 204 (1983) (courts make public policy, though subject to legislative correction). ¶ 28 The petitioners, citing Chevron Chemical Co. v. Superior Court, 131 Ariz. 431, 641 P.2d 1275 (1982), Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), and Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990), urge that we declare the EPA unconstitutional because legislation based on the thoroughly unconstitutional purpose expressed in the preamble must itself be declared unconstitutional. We reject this argument as well. Chevron simply holds, we think correctly, that the judiciary has the power to declare existing law while the legislature has the authority to enact laws. Washington holds that a verbal skills test which disparately impacted a particular minority group was not unconstitutional on that basis alone. Employment Division suggests that a facially neutral statute may offend the constitution if it unduly burdens religion. None of these cases supports petitioners' broad assertion that because a legislative preamble sets forth notions repugnant to the constitution, the operative legislation itself is necessarily invalid. ¶ 29 To the contrary, the constitutionality of the EPA is not dependent on the preamble because the preamble is not statutory text. See Sakrison v. Pierce, 66 Ariz. 162, 172-73, 185 P.2d 528, 535 (1947); Foremost Life Ins. Co. v. Trimble, 119 Ariz. 222, 226, 580 P.2d 360, 364 (App.1978) (citing Sakrison, that where an unambiguous operative statutory section conflicts with the purpose or policy section of a statute, the operative section controls); 1A Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction, § 20.04 (5th ed.1992). ¶ 30 The preamble is devoid of operative effect. Unfortunately, it manifests the legislature's intent to usurp judicial authority in violation of the separation of powers doctrine set forth in article 3 of the Arizona Constitution. The tri-partite separation of co-equal governmental powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches is a doctrine profoundly rooted in the constitutions of all fifty states, as well as in the Constitution of the United States. The judicial power in particular was defined by then Chief Justice Marshall early in the history of the Republic: It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S.(1 Cranch) 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). ¶ 31 The judicial power is not dependent on the legislative branch. The judicial mandate, intended to secure equal and substantial justice under the rule of law, is delegated to the judiciary by the constitution, not the legislature. The preamble would limit the mandate by restricting the judicial powera constitutional power sometimes neglected in the unpredictable maelstrom of partisan politics. ¶ 32 The EPA preamble is patently unconstitutional. It demonstrates a fundamental misapprehension of law. It expresses notions abandoned by the founding fathers more than two centuries ago during the constitutional debates at Philadelphia. See THE FEDERALIST No. 81 (Alexander Hamilton). Importantly, the preamble is not law and thus does not of itself invalidate the statutory language of the EPA. We therefore disregard the preamble in its entirety and attend to the constitutionality of the statute itself.