Opinion ID: 1240566
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fundamental Construct

Text: As we observed in State v. Huber, 129 W.Va. 198, 40 S.E.2d 11 (1946), in discussing the doctrine of separation of powers: No theory of government has been more loudly acclaimed. Id. at 209, 40 S.E.2d at 18. This fundamental [17] construct of our system of government has been the subject of countless commentaries: `This separation is deemed to be of the greatest importance; absolutely essential to the existence of a just and free government. This is not, however, such a separation as to make these departments wholly independent; but only so that one department shall not exercise the power nor perform the functions of another. They are mutually dependent, and could not subsist without the aid and co-operation of each other. Under the constitutions, the legislature is empowered to make laws; it has that power exclusively; the executive has the power to carry them by all executive acts into effect, and the judiciary has the exclusive power to expound them as the law of the land between suitors in the administration of justice. The legislature can do no executive acts, but it can legislate to regulate the executive office, prescribe laws to the executive which that department, and every grade of its officers, must obey. The legislature cannot decide cases, but it can pass laws which will furnish the basis of decisions, and the courts are bound to obey them. The functions of each branch are as distinct as the stomach and lungs in our bodies. They are intended to co-operate; not to be antagonistic; they are functions in the same system; when each functionary does its appropriate work no interference or conflict is possible.' State v. Harden, 62 W.Va. 313, 371-72, 58 S.E. 715, 739 (1907) (quoting Lewis' Suth. Stat. Cons. § 2). The United States Supreme Court in O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 53 S.Ct. 740, 77 L.Ed. 1356 (1933), articulated that the objective of separating the powers of government into three distinct branches was to preclude a commingling of these essentially different powers of government in the same hands. Id. at 530, 53 S.Ct. 740. Expounding further on our tripartite form of government, the high Court reasoned: If it be important thus to separate the several departments of government and restrict them to the exercise of their appointed powers, it follows, as a logical corollary, equally important, that each department should be kept completely independent of the othersindependent not in the sense that they shall not cooperate to the common end of carrying into effect the purposes of the Constitution, but in the sense that the acts of each shall never be controlled by, or subjected, directly or indirectly, to, the coercive influence of either of the other departments. James Wilson, one of the framers of the Constitution and a justice of this court, in one of his law lectures said that the independence of each department required that its proceedings should be free from the remotest influence, direct or indirect, of either of the other two powers. 1 Andrews, The Works of James Wilson (1896), Vol. 1, p. 367. And the importance of such independence was similarly recognized by Mr. Justice Story when he said that in reference to each other, neither of the departments ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence in the administration of their respective powers. 1 Story on the Constitution, 4th ed. § 530. To the same effect, The Federalist (Madison) No. 48. And see Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 488 [43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923)]. 289 U.S. at 530-31, 53 S.Ct. 740; accord Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 191, 26 L.Ed. 377 (1880) (It is ... essential to the successful working of this system that the persons intrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall by the law of its creation be limited to the exercise of the powers appropriate to its own department and no other.). Addressing this state's separation of powers provision, we recognized in syllabus point one of State ex rel. Barker v. Manchin, 167 W.Va. 155, 279 S.E.2d 622 (1981), that Article V, section 1 of the Constitution of West Virginia which prohibits any one department of our state government from exercising the powers of the others, is not merely a suggestion; it is part of the fundamental law of our State and, as such, it must be strictly construed and closely followed. As we acknowledged in Sims v. Fisher, 125 W.Va. 512, 25 S.E.2d 216 (1943), this Court has expressed a policy of strong adherence to the several constitutional provisions relating to the separation of powers. Id. at 524, 25 S.E.2d at 222.