Opinion ID: 1667877
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Are the $10 surcharges costs and charges of court, or fees, commissions, or allowances of public officers?

Text: Article IV, Section 96, Constitution of Alabama of 1901, reads as follows: The legislature shall not enact any law not applicable to all the counties in the state, regulating costs and charges of courts, or fees, commissions or allowances of public officers. Because we have already determined that Act 87-616 is not applicable to all counties in the state, we must decide whether the surcharge falls within the term costs and charges of court as that term is used in § 96. The cardinal rule in construing statutory language is to ascertain the legislative intent. Gulf Coast Media, Inc. v. Mobile Press Register, Inc., 470 So.2d 1211 (Ala.1985). Therefore, to construe § 96 we turn to the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1901. Section 96, as originally proposed, read: The legislature shall not enact any law for one or more counties not applicable to all the counties in the state, increasing the uniform charge for the registration of deeds and conveyances or regulating costs and charges of courts, or fees, commissions or allowances of public officers. 2 Official Proceedings, Constitutional Convention of 1901, p. 2643 (Wetumpka Printing Co.1940). (Emphasis added.) It is significant that the portion of the proposed section which prohibited the legislature from enacting local legislation increasing the uniform charge for registrations of deeds and conveyances was specifically struck out of the final draft of § 96 by an amendment proposed by Mr. Oates of Montgomery. It is, therefore, clear that the intent of the framers of § 96 was to specifically except charges for the recordation of deeds and conveyances from the prohibitive effect of the section. We find further support for this construction of § 96 in Opinion of the Justices No. 154, 264 Ala. 181, 86 So.2d 1 (1956). In that opinion, this Court addressed the constitutionality of a proposed bill that would have required a $1 recording fee on all instruments filed in the Mobile County Probate Office affecting the title to real and personal property. This Court opined that such fees would not be costs and charges of court and stated the following: Fees collected for the recording of instruments in the office of the judge of probate are entirely unconnected with litigation and the act of recording instruments in that office does not involve the exercise of a judicial function. 264 Ala. at 182, 86 So.2d at 3. Although advisory opinions are not binding on this Court, In re Opinion of the Justices, 209 Ala. 593, 594, 96 So. 487 (1923), we feel that the language used by the Court there is very persuasive in this case because the fee discussed in Opinion of the Justices No. 154 was so similar to the fee authorized by Act 87-616. We are of the opinion that § 96 of the Alabama Constitution does not prohibit the legislature from authorizing, by a local act, a surcharge such as we have under consideration here. The framers of the Constitution specifically struck from proposed § 96 the provision that would have prohibited this legislative action. Based upon the foregoing, we hold that the $10 surcharges of Act 87-616 are not costs and charges of court. Because the surcharges go to the county treasury and to no public officer, it is clear that they are not fees, commissions or allowances of a public officer. [2] Therefore, Act 87-616 is not a local act prohibited by § 96 of the Constitution of 1901.