Opinion ID: 3134286
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ill 2d 471, 483 (1971) (same).

Text: Our cases are replete with references to the legislature's authority to determine public policy, to prescribe solutions to problems, and to alter the common law. For example, in Maki v. Frelk, 40 Ill. 2d 193, 196 (1968), this court declined to adopt a system of comparative negligence, concluding instead that such a far-reaching change, if desirable, should be made by the legislature rather than by the court. The General Assembly is the department of government to which the constitution has entrusted the power of changing the laws. Although this court later decided to adopt comparative negligence on its own, without waiting for legislative action (see Alvis v. Ribar, 85 Ill. 2d 1 (1981)), the court did so not because it believed that the legislature lacked the authority to make that change, but for other reasons. Later, the legislature rejected the pure form of comparative fault adopted by this court in Alvis, replacing it with a modified version (735 ILCS 5/2--1116 through 2--1118 (West 1996)), which has withstood constitutional challenge (see Reuter v. Korb, 248 Ill. App. 3d 142 (1993)). More recently, in Committee for Educational Rights v. Edgar, 174 Ill. 2d 1, 29-32 (1996), this court declined to rule that the current method of funding public schools is unconstitutional, deciding instead to defer to the legislature's superior ability to establish public policy and to devise appropriate answers to questions facing our society. Although it is certainly true that the power of the legislature to act in a particular field is not a license to act unconstitutionally, the legislature generally enjoys broad discretion in its determinations of public policy. The majority does not disagree with these basic principles of review, yet the court reaches conclusions that are far different from what our precedents require, and that strike at the heart of the venerable and fundamental relationship between the legislative and judicial branches. The majority undermines these principles when it effectively substitutes its own view of public policy for the legislature's considered judgment.