Court Opinion

ID: 9578992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:50:19.658213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:07.570801
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
concurring specially. In the motion for a rehearing it is sought, for the first time, to challenge the constitutionality of the Juvenile Court Act upon which the opinion is based. It is settled by the decisions of this court beyond any doubt that such questions can not be thus raised. But it is my opinion that the construction the opinion places on that act does render it unconstitutional. I think it beyond the constitutional power of the General Assembly to vest in the numerous and different juvenile court judges the power to deprive a parent of the custody of its child when he thinks it should be done, which is substantially what the act provides. With the act thus construed, retention of custody by parents would depend upon as many different but unknown grounds as there are juvenile-court judges. No two of them are required by this law to act similarly upon any identical ground.
However, I concur in the judgment of affirmance because it is the duty of the court in construing a law to give it that construction which renders it constitutional rather than unconstitutional if it will stand such construction. Therefore, I construe this act in pari materia with Code §§ 74-108, 74-100, and 74-110, thereby giving it the meaning that, if the juvenile judge finds from evidence that the parent is unfit as tested by these sections to have *271custody, he may award it to another, and I think that the evidence here authorized him to do so. Those sections confer the lawful right of custody upon the parents, and then expressly state the various means whereby that custody may be lost. This court held in Bond v. Norwood, 195 Ga. 383 (24 S. E. 2d 289), that the parent’s right of custody could be taken away only on one or more of those grounds. I can not agree that so long as we have our Constitution the legislature can deprive free people of legal rights by men rather than by law. I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Hawkins concurs in this special concurrence.