Court Opinion

ID: 9539755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:09:38.141491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:18.127563
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(dissenting) — Arbitrary police power is the earmark of the police state, while the free world is characterized by the restraints upon sovereignty, which constitute the liberties of the people.
Thus, of the amendments comprising the Bill of Rights, the first two circumscribe the policies which may be made the subject of the police power, and the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments impose restrictions upon the methods of its enforcement.
Of all of the powers of government, the police power is the most responsive to constitutional requirements, and the assumption that it is not is, to me, inexplicable.
We are here concerned with Art. I, § 12, of the Washington state constitution, which provides, inter alia:
“No law shall be passed granting to any citizen . . . privileges . . . which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens, ...”
It is true that this relates to civil rather than criminal rights, but to law-abiding citizens it more nearly represents the spirit of America than any other. Equality before the law, and the land of opportunity are empty phrases if powerful influences can legally make fish of one and fowl of another, or if the right to live and make a living *788is subject to arbitrary licensing. There is no room for a caste of Hindu untouchables in America.
Licensing is a police-power technique having as its sole justification the protecting of the public in some operation which is a matter of public concern. Licensing legislation is more often than not sought by an organized group of the particular persons to be licensed. Such measures, therefore, must be scrutinized to insure that licenses are available to all eligible persons upon terms of equality to the end that public protection, rather than special privilege, shall be implemented thereby.
The arguments marshalled in support of the ordinance are specious. It is not denied that it arbitrarily grants licenses as a special privilege to some persons upon terms which it will not grant them to others. This is precisely what the constitutional prohibition was intended to prevent.
I dissent.