Court Opinion

ID: 9733954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:21:20.501895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:44.683995
License: Public Domain

M. R. Stempien, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent.
Defendant appeals as of right from a circuit court injunction ordering him to "cease and desist from issuing subpoenas”. Defendant is the ombudsman for the City of Flint, a home-rule city. In that capacity, defendant subpoenaed plaintiff to appear in defendant’s office for the purpose of giving testimony. Plaintiff filed a petition with the circuit court to quash defendant’s subpoena, claiming that defendant lacked the legal authority to issue subpoenas. The trial court correctly ruled that subpoena power is not essential to the management or administration of city government under the home rule cities act, MCL 117.1 et seq.; MSA 5.2071 et seq.
The majority first concludes that the ombudsman concept should not be impeded and, then, strains logic to reach the erroneous result that the *842home rule cities act permits a home-rule city to grant subpoena power in its ombudsman.
Clearly, the home rule cities act is silent on the granting of subpoena power to home-rule cities. This Court should hold that no subpoena power exists in home-rule cities without that expression of intention by the Legislature, which the majority says it would welcome.
The majority concedes that "[s]ubpoena power not expressly conferred will not be implied unless essential to fulfillment of the objectives of a statute”. But, from there, the majority opines that, because we should liberally construe the home-rule cities act, we should find implicit therein the power to issue subpoenas. I cannot agree.
In Dooley v Detroit, 370 Mich 194, 210; 121 NW2d 724 (1963), the Supreme Court held that the power of home-rule cities is not unlimited, stating: "[H]ome-rule cities do not possess plenary powers and may not, absent legislative grant, assume powers not essential to local self-government.”
Accordingly, unless the subpoena power is "essential to local self-government”, home-rule cities may not assume such power. No showing has been made in this case that subpoena power is essential to city management or administration. Nor can the majority point to any authority which articulates the precept that a city ombudsman without subpoena power cannot effectively function. By the very nature of an ombudsman’s duties, the power to subpoena witnesses is not an essential element of those duties. The duty of an ombudsman to investigate, which is at issue in this case, can be carried out without such power. Whether or not a local government ombudsman is armed with the naked power of subpoena does not relate to the ombudsman’s power to investigate, but actually *843deals with the manner in which the investigation will be carried out.
A grant of subpoena power is not reasonably inferable from the language of § 4j of the home rule cities act. On that point, the majority simply states the unsupported assertions that "perhaps the time has come to give the ombudsman concept a chance” and further that, "[i]f the Legislature is to receive [the] opportunity [to decide whether to continue and expand the ombudsman concept or to limit and terminate the powers of the ombudsman], the ombudsman must be permitted to exercise subpoena power”. The obvious legal fallacy in my brother jurists’ conclusions on that point is that the decision they make is constitutionally one not for the courts, but rather constitutes a clear act of legislation. The substance of such a ruling consists more of judicial legislation of what jurists might wish the law to be, than of a judicial determination of the intent of the drafters of the statute in question here.
Legislative history in Michigan demonstrates that subpoena power is not something routinely granted to local officials by the Legislature. Indeed, in its attempt to infer "by analogy” some statutory authority to provide this power, the majority cites only one statute which does grant subpoena power to a local governmental official; namely, the mayor of fourth-class cities, and even then only if the mayor is requested by the city council to issue same. See MCL 88.18; MSA 5.1714. No other statute has been cited by the majority to show that other local units of government, other than fourth-class cities in special circumstances, possess the subpoena power. Thus, I cannot see how the power to issue subpoenas is "essential to local self government”.
This legislative history evidences the Legisla*844ture’s intent to grant subpoena power only in limited circumstances, and then only if the use of that power is overseen by others. That is particularly clear in view of the many legislative proposals for granting subpoena power to government officials that die for lack of support in every legislative session. Another example of legislative intent to limit the use of subpoena power is in the Administrative Procedures Act of 1969, MCL 24.101 et seq.; MSA 3.560(101) et seq. It provides that only agencies "authorized by statute” may issue subpoenas, MCL 24.273; MSA 3.560(173). That language states quite explicitly the Legislature’s intent to delimit the authority of the state’s agencies to issue subpoenas. Thus, it is not essential even to state governmental agencies, let alone to local governmental agencies, to have subpoena power, absent judicial oversight. Likewise, I find the fact that not even the Attorney General of the State of Michigan has been granted this imposing power by the Legislature as illustrative of the legislative intent over the years that, unless expressly granted by the Legislature, subpoena power does not exist.1
It is my firm conviction that the power to issue subpoenas is such a strong vehicle for abuse of the liberty of individual citizens, particularly in the heated political arena of local government, that, if it is to be granted, it must be expressly granted by the Legislature. Thus, if the Legislature had intended that local units of government, no matter how classified, should exercise such power, then it would have manifested this intention expressly in a statute, in this case in the home rule cities act.
*845It is not the judiciary’s function to legislate. The judiciary must interpret the law, not write it.2 Because the home rule cities act is silent on the question of subpoena power, I see the majority writing legislation. Simply stated, if the power to issue subpoenas is not found in the act, then it is not there to be exercised. By this Court’s saying that subpoena power exists, when the act does not expressly provide for that power, the Court is legislating. I cannot subscribe to the Court’s being placed in the role of "filling in the blanks” in legislation. I subscribe to the concept of separation of powers. See Const 1963, art 3, § 2.
By indulging in judicial legislation, this Court usurps the constitutional powers of the Legislature. Such action violates the basic concept of our constitutional government. Its practice by the courts removes the initiation of the decision-making process on politically charged issues from the political arena of the legislative process, where the initiation of legislation is constitutionally placed, and unwisely places it in the most arbitrary and politically inaccessible branch of government, that is, the court. Judicial legislation is not only unwise judicial policy, but its practical effect is to erode the trust of the people in the constitutional separation of powers that guarantees to them that their basic concerns of citizenship will initially be addressed by those elected legislators who are the most accountable to them.
In my opinion, this case is a classic example of a situation in which the defendant should be soliciting votes from the Legislature, rather than invit*846ing this Court to create a power not expressly granted in the statute that the Legislature has time and again considered.
Finally, a few questions not answered by the majority opinion should be posed: (1) How and by whom is the ombudsman’s power to issue subpoenas to be enforced? (2) Can the ombudsman issue warrants for the arrest of the recalcitrant subpoenaed person? (3) Can a home-rule city now also create an office which could issue search warrants?
Under the guidelines stated by the Supreme Court in Dooley v Detroit, supra, I vote to affirm the trial court’s order against defendant to "cease and desist from issuing subpoenas”.

 See the Occupational Code, specifically, MCL 339.503; MSA 18.425(503), where it indicates that the department of licensing and regulation lacks the power to issue subpoenas during its investigations of complaints filed under the code; the department must instead ask the Attorney General to petition the circuit court to issue any subpoenas.

 See e.g., Northwood Properties Co v Royal Oak City Inspector, 325 Mich 419, 423-424; 39 NW2d 25 (1949); Wickham v Carlton Twp School District No 2, 325 Mich 94, 98; 37 NW2d 770 (1949); Ford Motor Co v Unemployment Compensation Comm, 316 Mich 468, 473; 25 NW2d 586 (1947); Crooke v Holland Furnace Co, 200 Mich 192, 195-196; 166 NW 1013 (1918).