Opinion ID: 1965862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Public's Right of Fishery

Text: In 1850, only eight years after ratification of the state constitution (and long before the passage of the Conservation Amendment), this Court declared in Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 563: We are of opinion that the Declaration of Rights and Privileges, contained in the seventeenth section of the first article of the Constitution, was intended to be carried into effect by legislative regulation, such regulation having for its object to secure to the whole people the benefit of the constitutional declaration, and being necessary for that purpose. In Cozzens, the defendant was indicted for stealing oysters from an oyster bed that the state leased to private parties. Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 563. The defendant argued that the General Assembly's lease to private individuals, but not to him, violated his constitutional right of fishery. Id. at 564. We held that the General Assembly has power to lease portions of the tide-waters of the State for private oyster fisheries to the complete exclusion,    of all but the lessees, even though the leases include portions of natural oyster and quahog grounds, notwithstanding said section 17. Payne & Butler, 31 RI. at 322, 77 A. at 156 (citing Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 564) (emphases added). This Court reasoned that the object of the General Assembly was not the benefit of the lessees of the private bed, but    to secure to the public a more abundant supply. In other words, the constitutional right is so regulated as to reserve to the public the greatest benefit. Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 564. We continued to uphold, against constitutional attack, the private leasing of public grounds. See Nelson, 31 R.I. at 264-65, 77 A. at 170. Although the result of these holdings essentially was to exclude all others, save the lessees, from the use and enjoyment of the leased grounds, we have determined that it is within the General Assembly's power to determine that doing so is in the best interest of the whole of the public. Id. In Opinion to the Senate, 87 RI. at 38-39, 137 A.2d at 526 (quoting Kofines, 33 R.I. at 224, 80 A. at 437 and citing Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 563), we reaffirmed that fishing must be carried on for the ultimate benefit of the people of the state and not merely for the profit and emolument of the fishermen engaged in the business, and that those who fish for commercial purposes have no rights in excess of those granted to the people of the state generally. Riley argues that this statute only allows for some commercial fishermen to be eligible to take these restricted species, and a statute that permit[s] one class of citizens to take these fish while prohibiting entirely the taking thereof by another class of citizens   [is] invalid as discriminatory. Opinion to the Senate, 87 R.I. at 38-39, 137 A.2d at 526. Riley further contends that because the scope of the right of fishery is equal access to the state's fishery resources, any regulation that creates inequality among commercial fishermen must be analyzed with strict scrutiny. See Cherenzia, 847 A.2d at 824 (stating that UN a statute or regulation contained restrictions that infringed upon the fundamental right of the inhabitants of the state to have equal access to the `rights of fishery,' then such a regulation or law would be subject to strict-scrutiny analysis). In Cherenzia, 847 A.2d at 819-20, a number of commercial shellfishermen brought a constitutional challenge against fishing regulations prohibiting the use of Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) for harvesting shellfish. Id. The fishermen argued that they were a class of citizens who were denied equal access to fishery in violation of their constitutional rights. Id. However, this Court held that no fundamental constitutional right exists for inhabitants of this state to harvest shellfish from specific bodies of water by using a specific method of fishing. Id. at 824. Riley argues that, unlike Cherenzia, this is a situation in which a class of individuals, those without licenses, has been denied equal access to fishery, and strict scrutiny should apply. For Riley, the right of equal access requires that either everyone is permitted to harvest the same species, or no one is. Reading equal access literally would run counter to our holdings that no fundamental right is implicated when the General Assembly enacts legislation for the good of the whole, even when it has been at the expense of a few. [11] See, e.g., Cherenzia, 847 A.2d at 825; Nelson, 31 R.I. at 270, 77 A. at 172; Cozzens, 2 R.I. at 563. This Court never has held that a fundamental right of fishery has been implicated and applied strict scrutiny to such regulations. As a result, this Court has applied a rational-basis analysis when testing the constitutionality of fishing regulations and statutes. See Cherenzia, 847 A.2d at 824, 825 (holding that no fundamental right was implicated by statute and applying a rational-basis test). We see no reason to depart from that precedent now.