Opinion ID: 871559
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Development of the Political Question Doctrine

Text: The political question doctrine is often considered the most amorphous aspect of justiciability[.] Nishitani v. Baker, 82 Hawai`i 281, 290, 921 P.2d 1182, 1191 (App. 1996) (citation omitted). The doctrine is the result of the balance courts must strike in preserving separation of powers yet providing a check upon the other two branches of government. Yamasaki, 69 Haw. at 171, 737 P.2d at 456. This court adopted the test enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) as its own test in Yamasaki, 69 Haw. 154, 737 P.2d 446. The test states: Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found[:(1)] a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or [(2)] a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or [(3)] the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or [(4)] the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of respect due coordinate branches of government; or [(5)] an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or [(6)] the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question. Yamasaki, 69 Haw. at 170, 737 P.2d at 455 (quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. 691). Unless any of these formulations is inextricable from the case at bar, dismissal for nonjusticiability is unwarranted. See id. An analysis into whether Plaintiffs' claim poses a nonjusticiable political question requires some background into this court's development of the political question doctrine, in which two pairs of cases have come to a head. In the first pair of cases, Yamasaki and OHA, this court determined controversies to be nonjusticiable political questions. See Yamasaki, 69 Haw. 154, 737 P.2d 446, and Office of Hawaiian Affairs v. State, 96 Hawai`i 388, 31 P.3d 901 (2001). The State cites these cases as analogous to the instant appeal. In the second pair of cases, Waihee and Kaho'ohanohano, this court determined controversies were not foreclosed from judicial review by the political question doctrine. See Board of Education v. Waihee, 70 Haw. 253, 768 P.2d 1279 (1989), and Kaho'ohanohano v. State, 114 Hawai`i 302, 162 P.3d 696 (2007). Plaintiffs cite these cases as more analogous to the instant appeal.