Opinion ID: 1756224
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hypercritical Exactness

Text: We are a coordinate branch of government, bearing great responsibilities. The powers of our government are divided in three distinct departments, those which are legislative, those which are executive and those which are judicial. The Constitution of Alabama specifically prohibits the judiciary from exercising legislative and executive powers. Art. 3, § 43, Constitution, 1901. I think the majority, by interpretation, has infringed upon the prerogatives of the Legislature. The majority has made a microscopic examination of Act No. 788 and concluded it violates Section 45 of our Constitution. It is not the province of this Court to view legislation with hypercritical exactness. We are supposed to construe acts passed by the Legislature in a very broad and liberal spirit. That principle of law is so settled it needs no citation, but a recent statement by the Chief Justice in Knight v. West Alabama Environmental Improvement Authority, 287 Ala. 15, 246 So.2d 903 (1971), makes the point. He wrote, with seven members of this Court concurring: Among other provisions, Section 45 of the Constitution says that each law enacted by the legislature `shall contain but one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title.' The title to Act No. 1117 does not make any expressed reference to the provisions of Sections 3, 8(7) and 8(9) of the Act which set forth detailed purposes and powers of such public corporations and authorize said public corporations to render financial assistance to industries and private corporations and the provisions of Section 8(1) which authorize the public corporations to engage in works of watershed improvements. A lucid discussion of this constitutional provision is found in Opinion of the Justices, 275 Ala. 254, 154 So.2d 12, wherein the following language appears: `(2) One of the purposes of the requirement of Section 45, supra, that the subject of a law shall be clearly expressed in the title, is to prevent surprise or fraud upon the legislature by incorporating in bills provisions not reasonably disclosed by its title, and which might be overlooked, and unintentionally approved in enacting the bill. Opinion of the Justices, 247 Ala. 195, 23 So.2d 505. Another purpose is to fairly apprise the public of the import of the legislature so they may be heard. Grayson v. Stone, 259 Ala. 320, 66 So.2d 438. `(3) However, this court is committed to the principle that this requirment as to clear expression of the subject of a bill in the title is not to be exactingly enforced in such manner as to cripple legislation, or is it to be enforced with hypercritical exactness, but is to be accorded a liberal interpretation. Kendrick v. Boyd, 255 Ala. 53, 51 So.2d 694; Taylor v. Johnson, 265 Ala. 541, 93 So.2d 143. `(4) When the subject of a bill is expressed in general terms in the title everything which is necessary to make a complete enactment in regard to it, or which results as a complement of the thought contained in the general expression, is included in and authorized by it. Dearborn v. Johnson, 234 Ala. 84, 173 So. 864.' This Court in Yeilding v. State ex rel. Wilkinson, 232 Ala. 292, 167 So. 580, held that a statute has but one subject, no matter to how many different matters it relates if they are all cognate, and but different branches of the same subject. Examined in the light of the foregoing criteria, I believe Act 788 meets all the requirements of Section 45. Furthermore, an examination of the House and Senate Journals [3] will conclusively show that this Act received considerable attention when it was going through the Legislature. I cannot believe the legislators did not know what the bill contained. The consideration given the legislation is all to the contrary, as shown by the House and Senate Journals.