Opinion ID: 1834644
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Operators' Premise: A Critical Assessment

Text: Our Constitution  any constitution  is a document presumed capable of ordering human affairs decades beyond the time of its ratification under circumstances beyond the prescience of the draftsmen. We should read and enforce the Constitution in the manner which best fits its language, is most consistent in principle with the best justification which may be given for that language, and which best serves our state today. Burrell v. Mississippi State Tax Comm'n, 536 So.2d 848, 854-55 (Miss. 1988) (citations omitted). Constitutions must be read objectively  if possible. Thus, this Court asks what the language means, not what the framers intended. Cf. O.W. HOLMES, COLLECTED LEGAL PAPERS 207 (1920), quoted in Mississippi Ins. Guar. Ass'n v. Vaughn, 529 So.2d 540, 542 (Miss. 1988). The case sub judice involves a legislative construction of § 98 of the state constitution. To affirm the chancellor's decision, this Court must declare the legislation unconstitutional  calling to the fore the familiar and oft-repeated rules of construction collected in Burrell, 536 So.2d at 858-59. What is important at the moment is that § 97-33-51 of the Miss. Code Ann. is the sort of legislative construction which this Court has held in the past persuasive and entitled to much weight. See, e.g., State ex rel Muirhead v. State Bd. of Election Comm'rs, 259 So.2d 698, 700 (Miss. 1972); L.N. Dantzler Lumber Co. v. State, 97 Miss. 355, 382, 53 So. 1, 3 (1910). This view is but a function of this Court's respect for the fact that § 97-33-51 is presented here after having been approved by the legislature and the governor  who, like the members of this Court, are sworn to uphold the dictates of the constitution. Burrell, 536 So.2d at 858. These guides help but do not erase the fact that, in the end, the Court alone must confront and resolve the issue presented. See Alexander v. State By & Through Allain, 441 So.2d 1329, 1333 (Miss. 1983); see also Frizzell v. Highwood Service, Inc., 205 Kan. 821, 473 P.2d 97, 101 (1969) ([T]he constitutional ban against lotteries ... is not self-defining. That function is judicial in nature.  (emphasis added)).