Court Opinion

ID: 9696846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:00:14.672612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.155982
License: Public Domain

CATHELL, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I believe that the doctrine of separation of powers, which, unlike its federal counterpart, is incorporated expressly in the Constitution of Maryland through the Declaration of Rights, does not permit the Legislature to create laws that can be used directly to require the Governor to make his nonpublic activities public, while acting as Governor, including his duties of appointment, scheduling of private interviews and many of the other duties inherent to the position of Chief Officer of the heretofore separate and independent executive branch.
Today, the majority imposes a heavier burden on the Governor than the federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, have imposed upon the President, even though the federal courts view the doctrine of separation of powers as an implied doctrine. The doctrine is nowhere stated in the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, or the constitutional amendments enacted thereafter. *566Conversely, Article 8 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights provides:
Article 8. Separation of powers.
That the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers of Government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other; and no person exercising the functions of one of . said Departments shall assume or discharge the duties of any other.
Maryland’s recognition of the separation of powers is found not just in the express provisions of Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights. The Maryland Constitution, Article II, Section 17, adopted in the Constitution of 1867, provides: “To guard against hasty or partial legislation and encroachment of the Legislative Department upon the co-ordinate Executive and Judicial Departments, every Bill ... [shall] be presented to the Governor.” The initial clause of this provision notes that the reason for empowering the Governor with the veto power is to protect the separation of powers in Maryland. The comparable bill signing and veto provision in the United States Constitution, on the other hand, makes no mention of the importance of guarding against “encroachment of the Legislative Department upon the co-ordinate Executive and Judicial Departments.” It merely states that bills will be presented to the President for signing and provides the procedure to be followed should he or she refuse to sign a bill. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 7, cl. 2-3.
It is my view that, especially in light of Maryland’s express constitutional provisions, the majority is not sufficiently deferential to the mandates of the separation of powers doctrine. What the majority inflicts upon the doctrine and the Governor with its decision in this case may well come home to roost. No distinction between the executive and judicial branches is made in the applicability of Article 8.1 Unlike the federal system, where separation of powers is implied, there is more *567room for interpretation recognizing the confidentiality needs of the judicial branch. There is little room to maneuver in Maryland when the doctrine, by express constitutional provision, includes all branches. The federal courts, unlike the majority today, recognize that the separation of powers, implied in the federal Constitution, protects the private office where the Chief Executive conducts public business from direct requests for records under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
It is important to address the beginnings of the separation of powers doctrine in Maryland as an express constitutional provision. The first phrase, “[t]hat the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers of Government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other,” was in the original 1776 Declaration of Rights as Article 8.2 It, along with the Constitution of Maryland, was passed on August 14, 1776. Significantly, the separation of powers doctrine was not included in the Declaration of Rights as an afterthought. It was an important aspect of the original constitution, and subject to some opposition. The Maryland Gazette of October 24, 1776, contained a poem, entitled “The Song of the Man in the Moon,” apparently expressing displeasure with the inclusion of the provision:
I saw in labour to bring forth
A government of fame and worth:
But when ‘twas born, the granny said,
The monster had a triple head.
Surely agreeable to nature,
One head’s enough for any creature;
*568But if that head should be divided,
How will the quarrel, be decided.
John C. Rainbolt, A Note on the Maryland Declaration of Rights and Constitution of 1776, 66 Md. Hist. Mag. 420, 429-30 (1971) (describing the constitutional controversy as between those who wanted a more democratic form of government and those wanting a more elitist form).
The importance of the inclusion of the express provision in the Declaration of Rights in 1776 has been described by commentators over the years:
Separation of powers. One of the Proprietary grievances was that the Governor and his Council exercised legislative, executive, and judicial powers, as in effect did the Proprietor, and as did Parliament. This was recognized as a potential source of oppression, and violated the political theories that Montesquieu and others had brought into vogue.[3] Most of the bills of rights, including George Mason’s famous Virginia model, contained provisions requiring a separation. . . . [4]
H.H. Walker Lewis, The Maryland Constitution 1776, 47 (1976).
A resolution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention of 1850 that again stressed the importance of the separation of powers principle in Maryland. It provided:
*5695th. An acknowledgement of the impropriety of the concentration of even the necessary powers of government in a few hands, and of the indispensableness of guarding against usurpation by so constituting the different departments and functionaries, that these shall serve as checks and balances to each other.
Proceedings of the Maryland State Convention to Frame a New Constitution 110 (1850). This resolution apparently was approved and embodied in the Article 6 restatement of the separation of powers doctrine in the 1851 Constitution, now found in Article 8. Alfred S. Niles, Maryland Constitutional Law 10-11 (1915), indicates the importance our Framers, and this Court, placed on these early constitutional provisions:
The first constitution of Maryland was framed in the same year as [the] Declaration of Independence was adopted....
This constitution, as amended from time to time, remained the fundamental law of our State until 1851, when a second constitution was adopted, which was succeeded by the Constitution of 1864, and that by the Constitution of 1867, which [in 1915 and now] is still in force.
“Constitutions are not to be interpreted according to the words used in particular clauses. The whole must be considered, with a view to ascertain the sense in which the words were employed, and its terms must be taken in their ordinary and common acceptation, because they are presumed to have been so understood by the framers and by the people who adopted it.... It, unlike the acts of our legislature, owes its whole force and authority to its ratification by the people.... ” [Citing Manly v. State, 7 Md. 135, 147 (1854).]
... State v. Mayhew, 2 Gill [487,] 497 [ (1845) ]:
A contemporaneous construction of the Constitution of long duration, continually practiced under, and through which innumerable rights of property have been acquired, *570ought not to be shaken but upon the ground of manifest error and cogent necessity.
Discussing the different treatments of the separation of powers doctrine by the federal government and Maryland, Niles, supra, states at 19:
The limitation upon the Federal Government is, however, not found in the words of the Constitution itself, but is simply an unavoidable consequence from all its provisions taken together.
The language of our Maryland Declaration of Rights, ... is clear and explicit; and our courts have been alert to oppose even the first steps toward usurpation by one department of the powers or duties of either of the others, in one case declaring ex mero motu [on its own motion to prevent injustice], a law unconstitutional and void on this ground, although the point was not made by counsel, [citing Beasley v. Ridout, 94 Md. 641, 52 A. 61 (1902); Crane v. Meginnis, 1 G. & J. 463 (1829) ].
Continuing to discuss the importance of the separation of powers doctrine in our early history, Niles, supra, at 22, quotes from The Chancellor’s Case, 1 Bland 595, 672 (Md.Ch. 1825):
This division and separation is the peculiar characteristic and great excellence of our Government. It is the grand bulwark of all our rights, and every citizen has the deepest interest in its most sacred preservation. Each of these several departments should be kept, and should feel it to be its highest honor, to keep strictly within the constitutional boundaries assigned to it. The Legislature should not encroach upon the judiciary, nor upon the Executive; nor should either of those departments trench upon each other, or upon the legislative.
Niles later discusses the adoption of the constitutional provision giving the Governor the veto power:
In the Constitution of 1867 under Article [II], Section 17 the Governor’s function in approving — or not — legislation was in significant part to guard against ... encroachment of *571the Legislative Department upon the co-ordinate Executive and Judicial Department, ...
Id. Niles specifically references this language as a distinct reason for the veto power in Maryland and contrasts it with the language of the federal constitutional provisions granting the veto power: “In the Federal Constitution, no reason is given for the existence of this power. In the Maryland Constitution, it is stated to be ‘to guard against ... encroachments of the Legislative Department upon the [other] Departments.’ ” Id. at 119. At the time that the veto language was being added by the 1867 Constitution, the 1867 Constitutional Convention, commenting on the Declaration of Rights and the new veto power, stated:
Sec. 17. The most important change of all concerning the Executive office, is investing it with the Veto Power.
The words in which this power is given are nearly the same as in the Constitution of the United States. There is, however, a preamble prefixed defining its use to be “to guard against ... encroachments of the Legislative Department upon the co-ordinate Executive and Judicial Departments,” ....
Edward Otis Hinkley, The Constitution of the State of Maryland, app. at 126 (1868).
It is important to note that there has been an attempt to repeal Maryland’s express constitutional provision with respect to the separation of powers. There is no way to know, however, why the citizens of Maryland rejected the proposed Constitution of 1968, which, among other things, attempted to abolish Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights, last readopted in the Constitution of 1867. “The proposed 1967-68 Constitution did not contain an explicit separation of powers provision relying, as does the United States Constitution, on the structure of the government to create the inference of separation. The proposed constitution was rejected by voters.” Dan Friedman, The History, Development, and Interpretation of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, 71 Temp. L.Rev. 637, 688 n.194 (1998) (citation omitted).
*572As I perceive the history surrounding the adoption of the original separation of powers provision in the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution of 1776, it was based on the colonists’ experiences in attempting to deal with, and suffering from, the rule of the Governor and his Council, an entity that exercised the power and control of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. To an extent, the colonists had suffered the same abuses from afar by the English Parliament. Moreover, prior to the adoption of the 1776 Declaration of Rights, the colonists had been subjected to a legislative body that acted like Parliament. The powers of the colonial legislature were described in an early Maryland case that construed a pre-Declaration of Rights colonial statute from 1773. In Partridge v. Dorsey’s Lessee, 3 H. & J. 302, 322 (1810), the Court said:
At the time the Act of Assembly passed, the power and jurisdiction of the General Assembly of Maryland ... were as great and transcendent, as the power and jurisdiction of the Parliament of England, within the scope of their authority. And Sir Edward Coke informs us, “the power and jurisdiction of Parliament is so transcendent and absolute, that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds.” ... He [Sir William Blackstone] also declares, that “all mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal.”
The citizens of the new Maryland had experienced numerous years of that type of governance, whereas the fledgling federal government had not, as a separate entity, been subject to the same problems because the federalist system did not then exist. The colonies formed the federal government in order, in part, to better withstand and fight the past abuses of Parliament and the colonial governors. At the time of the creation of the federal government, and later its constitutional framework, the federal system had no direct experience with the abuses of power when all functions of government repose in one entity. The states, particularly Maryland, as I interpret the events of 1776, considered the separation of powers to *573be more important than the federal government ever did. The experience of the colonies had been first-hand. Because it was more important to them, Marylanders were not willing to rest upon an assumption that the doctrine would be implied from the form of the government they were adopting. They wanted it written in constitutional stone, not suggested by constitutional implication.
With all due respect to the majority, the doctrine’s history in this state calls for a more rigid adherence than that afforded to the federal implication of separation of powers, not the lesser standard the majority adopts with its position in this case. As the older cases note, the doctrine of separation of powers always has been a sacred trust in Maryland. Rather than affording it the status to which this Court previously has said it is entitled, the majority today relegates the doctrine to an unimportant requirement that the Legislature can ignore when it chooses. Although it opens the Governor’s office to a highly-reputable newspaper in this case, the door remains open to any scandal rag searching for controversy in the future.
The majority distances itself from most of this Court’s basic, albeit early, cases on the subject of separation of powers. In State v. Chase, 5 H. & J. 297 (1821), we were faced with a challenge to the Legislature’s imposition of additional judicial duties on judges. We upheld the power of that entity to impose judicial duties on the judicial branch but, in dicta, rejected any power to impose nonjudicial duties. We said:
We hold it to be perfectly clear, that the Legislature may rightfully and constitutionally, impose upon the Judges any new and additional judicial duties....
Such a right is inseparable from the genius of our institutions, and from the nature of things it must be so; if it were otherwise, Courts of justice would answer but half the purposes of their institution; and all Judges are supposed to accept their appointments, with a knowledge, and tacit consent, that their labors may from time to time be increased or diminished, according to public exigency — seldom *574diminished to be sure, though sometimes increased with no very sparing hand.
New judicial duties may often be unnecessarily imposed, and services, not of a judicial nature, may sometimes be required. In the latter case, a Judge is under no legal obligation to perform them.
Id. at 304 (emphasis added). In Crane, 1 G. & J. at 472-73, the Court of Appeals opined:
The Constitution of this State ... is the immediate work of the people, in their sovereign capacity, and contains standing evidences of their permanent will. It portions out supreme power, and assigns it to different departments, prescribing to each the authority it may exercise, and specifying that from the exercise of which it must abstain. The public functionaries move then in a subordinate character, and must conform to the fundamental laws or prescripts of the creating power. When they transcend defined limits, their acts are unauthorized, and being without warrant, are necessarily to be viewed as nullities. If considered as valid acts, the distinction between unlimited and circumscribed authority is done away, the derivative exerts original power, and of constitutional law nothing is left but the name.
The legislative department is nearest to the source of power, and is manifestly the predominant branch of government. Its authority is extensive and complex, and being less susceptible on that account of limitation, is more liable to be exceeded in practice.... The check to legislative encroachment is to be found in the declaration, that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers ought to be kept separate and distinct; and in the solemn obligations of fidelity to the Constitution, under which all legislative functions are performed. [Emphasis added.]
See also Mayhew, 2 Gill at 497; Prout v. Berry, 2 Gill 147, 149 (1844) (“[T]he Legislature possessed no power in any given determination of the Court of Appeals, to declare what would be the rights of the parties; for however consistent with justice and equity such a declaration may have been, the *575Legislature could exercise no judicial power.”); Mitchell v. Mitchell, 1 Gill 66, 84 (1843) (“[I]t is the province of Courts of justice to expound laws, and not to legislate; that is a duty which belongs to a different department of the government.”).
In Miller v. State ex rel. Fiery, 8 Gill 145 (1849), the Legislature passed an Act in 1845 requiring the Washington County Court to grant an appeal in that case. In holding that the Legislature violated the constitution by attempting to exercise judicial power, we said:
[W]e think it manifest that the Act of 1845, ch. 358, is the exercise of such an unconstitutional power, by the General Assembly of Maryland, as renders it wholly inoperative and void____ [T]he legislative and judicial powers, under the Constitution of this State, are confided to different branches of the government; the Legislature are incompetent to exercise judicial powers.
Id. at 148. We again stressed the importance of separation of powers in Regents of the University of Maryland v. Williams, 9 G. & J. 365, 410 (1838):
The province of the legislative department of government is to make laws, confining itself within the limits prescribed by the Constitution. It cannot usurp the powers confided to either of the other departments.... For if the Legislature could, without control, exercise judicial as well as legislative powers, the tenure of everything dear and valuable to the citizen, would be, the unrestricted will of that body; to guard against which, the provision was introduced for a division of the powers of the government.
In Berrett v. Oliver, 7 G. & J. 191 (1835), the Legislature passed a bill negating a decree in a private action. The Court said: “Can the Legislature exercise such a power? Unquestionably not. This Act of Assembly is [a] direct and obvious violation of our Declaration of Rights [Article 8].... ” Id. at 206. In Wright v. Wright’s Lessee, 2 Md. 429 (1852), we rejected an attempt by a divorcee to assert a legislative power *576to adjust the property rights of the parties, in part on separation of powers grounds.5 There we said:
Under [Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights] a person may be ... disseized of his freehold, & c., provided it be done by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.
The words by “the judgment of his peers,” mean a trial by jury, and the words “by the law of the land,” which are copied from Magna Charta, are understood to mean due process of law, according to the course and usage of the common law.... And by the sixth section of the same instrument it is said, “the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government, ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other.” The evident purpose of the declaration last quoted, is to parcel out and separate the powers of government, and to confide particular classes of them to particular branches of the supreme authority.... Within the particular limits assigned to each, they are supreme and uncontrollable.... It [the Legislature] has not undertaken to deal with questions of property; if it had attempted to have done so, such attempt would have been an assumption of power unauthorized by the constitution.
Id. at 452-53 (citations omitted).
One purpose of the Constitution of 1851 was to abolish lifetime appointments that had proliferated under the Constitution of 1776. An Adjutant General had been appointed to lifetime tenure in Watkins v. Watkins, 2 Md. 341 (1852). While he was in office, the Constitution of 1851 was passed, which limited the term of the Adjutant General to six years. It also required the Governor to appoint officers “with the advice and consent of the senate.” Id. at 354. The Governor appointed a new Adjutant General while the Legislature was not in session and thus the Governor had not received the *577“advice and consent” of the Senate. When the new Adjutant General attempted to take office, the old Adjutant General (both were named Watkins) refused to turn over the office, claiming life tenure because he had been appointed when the constitution so provided. The newly-appointed Adjutant General sought a Writ of Mandamus directing the former Adjutant General to surrender the office. The trial court declined and we affirmed, noting
that in all human contrivances confidence must be reposed somewhere, and that under the distribution of the powers of the government in our State, it is not given to the judiciary to compel action on the part of a co-ordinate branch of government. Its authority is confined to restraining the potency of its enactments when they transcend constitutional limits.
Id. at 356. See Prince George’s County Comm’rs v. Mitchell, 97 Md. 330, 340, 55 A. 673, 675 (1903) (voiding as unconstitutional, pursuant to Article 8, a statute that placed control of a local courthouse, in which the entire county government was housed, in the hands of a court-appointed judicial officer); Board of Supervisors v. Todd, 97 Md. 247, 263-65, 54 A. 963, 966 (1903) (voiding a statute under the separation of powers doctrine that mandated the circuit court to order elections upon petition); Robey v. Prince George’s County Comm’rs, 92 Md. 150, 160-62, 48 A. 48, 50-51 (1900) (striking down a statute that required judges to supervise executive accounts as violative of separation of powers); Roche v. Waters, 72 Md. 264, 272, 19 A. 535, 538 (1890) (“The Act of 1868, by its terms ... authorizes the court to change the effect of decrees which had become final. It is an exercise of judicial power by the Legislature.”); Dorsey’s Lessee v. Gary, 37 Md. 64, 79 (1872) (declaring unconstitutional an act, which reinstituted certain lawsuits, for infringing on judicial powers); Mayor of Baltimore v. Horn, 26 Md. 194, 207 (1867) (overturning, as a legislative infringement upon the judicial power, a law authorizing suit against specific property owners); Thomas v. Owens, 4 Md. 189, 227 (1853) (stating as to the separation of powers provision in the Declaration of Rights: “Were it not *578for such a provision, the whole government would exist only by the permission of the legislature.”).
The case of County Commissioners of Queen Anne’s County v. County Commissioners of Talbot County, 108 Md. 188, 69 A. 801 (1908), emphasized the great importance this state has often afforded to the sanctity of the separation of powers as a governmental foundation. The case involved a longstanding dispute over which county should pay to erect and repair a bridge over the Kent Narrows, which would replace a solid causeway erected in those waters by Queen Anne’s County, but which allegedly had interfered with the ability of residents of Talbot County to navigate the Narrows. After other attempts to resolve the dispute legislatively, the General Assembly enacted legislation requiring that both counties be financially responsible for the construction of the ultimate replacement bridge. After Talbot County refused to pay its share of the cost, the Legislature enacted another statute that required Talbot County to assess its citizens’ property to produce a specified amount of money, which would then be used to reimburse Queen Anne’s County for one-half of its expenditures. We held that the statute violated the separation of powers provision of our Declaration of Rights. We asked ourselves “whether the Legislature has ... attempted to exercise functions that belong to the judicial department of government, or in other words, has it attempted to pronounce a judgment or decree?” Id. at 196, 69 A. at 804. We answered:
[The setting of the amount due] is done without any judicial inquiry as to how much the bridge actually cost ... or as to what the actual cost of maintaining the bridge may be. In some jurisdictions it is possible that such an ascertainment by the Legislative branch of the government would stand, but certainly it cannot in Maryland.
Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights declares “that the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers of government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other.”
An Act of the Legislature determining what amount of indebtedness is due ... by one county to another, is an *579attempt to exercise judicial functions and therefore unconstitutional and void.
Id. at 196-97, 69 A. at 804 (citation omitted).
In Close v. Southern Maryland Agricultural Ass’n, 134 Md. 629, 644, 108 A. 209, 215 (1919), after reciting a number of cases that attempted to confer licensing authority upon the courts, we rejected the authority of the Legislature to confer upon us the power to grant gambling exemption licenses to agricultural associations, stating simply that “[i]t is for the Legislature, and not for the courts to pass statutes.” We held that the law was “invalid.” Id.
Even in our more modern cases we have exhibited more deference to the separation of powers doctrine than does the majority today. We said in Perkins v. Eskridge, 278 Md. 619, 626, 366 A.2d 21, 27 (1976), overruled on other grounds by Parrott v. State, 301 Md. 411, 483 A.2d 68 (1984), that
neither the judiciary nor the legislature is superior, one over the other — rather they are coordinate branches of government and the former must exercise its duty and authority to determine what the law is in order to ensure the viability of the separation of powers provision of the Maryland Constitution (Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights).
We discussed the doctrine at some length in Department of Natural Resources v. Linchester Sand & Gravel Corp., 274 Md. 211, 334 A.2d 514 (1975), in which the Legislature had created a statutory scheme of a de novo appeal with a right to a jury trial that, in essence, empowered juries to issue administrative permits as part of the judicial process. We stated:
[T]he Department of Natural Resources appealed to this Court, asserting that this type of extensive and nullifying judicial de novo review, under § 9-308(b), is not permitted by the Maryland Constitution because “the judicial branch of government may not usurp the province of the administrative prerogative.” We agree....
That aspect of the Constitution which is spotlighted by this case is the fundamental doctrine of separation of pow*580ers, a principle expressly or impliedly recognized in the basic law of every state in this nation. This doctrine has long been a cornerstone of this State’s concept of government and finds forthright expression in Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights contained in the Constitution of Maryland in these words:
“That the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers of Government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other; and no person exercising the functions of one of said Departments shall assume or discharge the duties of any other.”
Although Maryland’s statement of the separation of powers is “a more concrete barrier than any which the Supreme Court has had to hurdle under the Federal Constitution,” R. Oppenheimer, Administrative Law in Maryland, 2 Md. L.Rev. 185, 188 (1938), the right of the Legislature to delegate powers to administrative agencies has been recognized in this State for more than 125 years. Harrison v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 1 Gill 264 (1843).
Id. at 217-18, 334 A.2d at 519-20 (emphasis added). We then noted that in response to the many practical needs of government, the number of administrative agencies has flourished. Additionally, within the agencies there has occurred “some mingling, blending and overlapping of the legislative, executive and judicial functions.” Id. at 220, 334 A.2d at 521. This “elasticity” of the separation of powers doctrine, we noted, was sensible and permissible. We went on to state, however:
[T]his constitutional “elasticity” cannot be stretched to a point where, in effect, there no longer exists a separation of governmental power, as the Maryland Constitution does not permit a merger of the three branches of our State government, nor does it “make any one of the three departments subordinate to the other, when exercising the trust committed to it.” Painter v. Mattfeldt, 119 Md. 466, 472, 87 A. 413[, 416] (1913). When the Legislature confers, by enactment, powers upon one of the other branches of government which are beyond those permitted under the Constitution, or any of the three branches of government takes unto itself *581powers denied to it or those strictly within the sovereignty of another branch, the courts of this State must step in and declare such encroachments to be constitutionally prohibited....
... “The basic proposition that a constitutional court should not be required to perform nonjudicial functions is probably beyond challenge.” 4 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, § 29.10 (1958). Because courts cannot be required to exercise nonjudicial duties it has been held by this Court that it is beyond the power of the Legislature to require the judiciary to: approve accounts of county officers before payment, Robey v. Prince George’s County Comm’rs, 92 Md. 150, 48 A. 48 (1900); perform duties tantamount to a board of review in assessing property for tax purposes, Baltimore City v. Bonaparte, 93 Md. 156, 48 A. 735 (1901); appoint a board of visitors to supervise the county jail, Beasley v. Ridout, 94 Md. 641, 52 A. 61 (1902); provide for referendum concerning issuance of liquor licenses, Board of Supervisors v. Todd, 97 Md. 247, 54 A. 963 (1903); issue licenses permitting pari-mutuel betting on horse races, Close v. Southern Md. Agr. Asso., 134 Md. 629, 108 A. 209 (1919); and issue liquor licenses, Cromwell v. Jackson, 188 Md. 8, 52 A.2d 79 (1947). Thus, in regard to administrative agencies, which, while often functioning as fact-finding bodies, perform essentially nonjudicial duties, a Maryland court’s “inquiry is [almost always] limited to finding whether there was illegality or unreasonableness in the ... action — when that inquiry is finished, judicial scrutiny ends....” Balto. Gas [and Elec.] Co. v. McQuaid, 220 Md. 373, 382, 152 A.2d 825[, 830] (1959).
Id. at 220, 226, 334 A.2d at 521, 524 (third alteration in original) (emphasis added). See also Maryland State Police v. Warwick Supply & Equip. Co., 330 Md. 474, 480, 624 A.2d 1238, 1241 (1993) (“The delegation doctrine prohibits a legislative body from delegating its law-making function to any other branch of government or entity and is a corollary of the separation of powers doctrine implicit in the United States *582Constitution and expressly provided in the Maryland Constitution.”); Commission on Med. Discipline v. Stillman, 291 Md. 390, 401, 435 A.2d 747, 753 (1981) (“The separation of powers doctrine mandates that the legislature may not divest the judiciary of [its] inherent powers.”). But see McCulloch v. Glendening, 347 Md. 272, 282-84, 701 A.2d 99, 104 (1997) (noting that Article 8 does not mandate an absolute separation of powers among the branches of government); Judy v. Schaefer, 331 Md. 239, 261, 627 A.2d 1039, 1050 (1993) (stating that “Article] 8 does not impose a complete separation between the branches of government,” and delegation of legislative power to the executive branch is constitutionally permissible “where sufficient safeguards are legislatively provided for the guidance ... in ... administration of the statute.’ ” (quoting Department of Transp. v. Armacost, 311 Md. 64, 81, 72, 532 A.2d 1056,1064,1060 (1987))).6
In my view, our long-standing precedent regarding the separation of powers dictates that the statute at hand is inapplicable for the purpose sought in this case. Our two recent decisions, McCulloch, 347 Md. 272, 701 A.2d 99, and Judy, 331 Md. 239, 627 A.2d 1039, are distinguishable because *583the exercises of the challenged powers in those cases were supported by other constitutional provisions, namely, those relating to the Governor’s supervision over Executive Branch employees in McCulloch and those relating to the Governor’s involvement in the budget process in Judy. With the exception of these two cases, the similar cases to which they refer, and the two aberrational cases arising out of the strife of Maryland’s peculiar position during the Civil War, McCormick v. Deaver, 22 Md. 187 (1864) and Mayor of Baltimore v. Howard, 15 Md. 376 (1860), this Court has long been a paramount guardian of the separation of powers doctrine. The majority opinion, in my view, disregards this long history of reverence to the principle.
Moreover, in the case sub judice we are not being asked to restrain a function of the Executive Branch; respondent seeks to have us compel the Governor to cooperate in the furnishing of information to it. See Watkins, 2 Md. at 346. This information is not sought as evidence in adversarial litigation between other parties; it is sought in a direct suit against the Governor. There is no conflict between the power of the judicial branch to require the disclosure of information necessary to resolve conflicts between citizens effectively and the reluctance of the executive to furnish the necessary information. Maryland’s judicial branch, along with the federal judiciary, admittedly has that power as explained in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 711-13, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3109-10, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974):
It is the manifest duty of the courts to vindicate [constitutional] guarantees, and to accomplish that it is essential that all relevant and admissible evidence be produced.
In this case we must weigh the importance of the general privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in performance of the president’s responsibilities against the inroads of such a privilege on the fair administration of criminal justice. The interest in preserving confidentiality is weighty indeed and entitled to great respect....
*584We conclude that when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice. [Footnote omitted.]
We are not asked here to enforce a judicial summons on the Governor in ongoing litigation, criminal or otherwise. We are asked to compel him to aid respondent on a fishing expedition that no one, other than respondent, knows for which fish the expedition is being mounted. Asserting our constitutional power to restrain action is quite different from the power respondent asks us to exercise — to compel an action which is to the detriment of the Chief Executive and his or her power to formulate policy and gather information necessary to perform his or her functions effectively.
A question also exists: How do we enforce a decision such as that rendered in this case? A restraint on executive action generally can be self-enforced. By necessity, the Governor operates through subordinates who can be restrained. But a mandatory directive ordering a Governor to act in this particular way, I suggest, is a pig that will have difficulty trying to fly. If he declines, are we going to hold him in contempt? If he does not open his doors to the Washington Post, will the House of Delegates impeach him and the Senate try him pursuant to Article II, section 7, and Article III, section 16 of the Maryland Constitution? Moreover, what constitutional principle are we furthering in this confrontation between the executive and judicial branches, a conflict created not by us, but by the legislative branch of government? What constitutional purpose is it to serve?
We need to understand that this confrontation does not involve only the legislative branch; it is also a constitutional confrontation between the judicial and executive branches, a confrontation created by the dubious applicability of this legislation to the nonpublie aspects of the inner workings of the Office of the Governor, as contrasted with the general functions of the subordinate executive branch departments. As *585indicated by our cases, we have not been reluctant to protect our own powers as a judiciary under Article 8. Interestingly, the Open Meetings Act, Maryland Code (1984, 1995 Repl.Vol.), section 10 — 503(a)(1)(ii) of the State Government Article, contains an express exception for judicial functions, stating that the Act “does not apply to ... a judicial function.” No similar provision exists in sections 10-611 through 10-628 of the State Government Article, entitled “Access to Public Records.” What intellectual exercises will we use to secure our work from premature disclosure? How will we be able to maintain the independence necessary for our work if in contemporary time the methods and facts of our deliberations are to be made public upon request? It is easy to say we will protect the 'deliberative nature of our work because we have the inherent power to do so. How will we, in the future, explain that what is good for the executive goose is not good for the judicial gander?
Even the federal courts, in respect to the federal government, which had no history of centralized power abuses similar to that of the colonial governments, construe the implied constitutional requirement of separation of powers with more deference than the majority in this case affords our express provisions. In Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. v. Clinton, 997 F.2d 898 (D.C.Cir.1993), a case concerning a federal statute that limits acts of nepotism, at issue was the applicability of that statute to the functions the President delegated to his wife as a member of a federal task force. One issue was whether the statute’s language, which made it applicable to agencies of the government, applied to the Executive Office of the President. The court noted that under other acts, including the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), federal courts had held that the White House and the Executive Office of the President were not intended to be included:
Although [the statute] defines agency as “an executive agency,” we doubt that Congress intended to include the White House or the Executive Office of the President. Cf. Franklin v. Massachusetts, [505 U.S. 788], 112 S.Ct. 2767, *5862775, 120 L.Ed.2d 636 (1992) (holding that President is not “agency” for purposes of Administrative Procedure Act); Meyer, 981 F.2d at 1298 (President’s advisors are not “agency” under FOIA); Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282, 289 (D.C.Cir.1991) (President not APA “agency”).
Id. at 905. That court also discussed the importance of upholding the separation of powers in view of the relationship between the President and his closest advisors:
Application of FACA[, the antinepotism statute,] to the Task Force clearly would interfere with the President’s capacity to solicit direct advice on any subject related to his duties from a group of private citizens, separate from or together with his closest governmental associates. That advice might be sought on a broad range of issues in an informal or formal fashion. Presidents have created advisory groups composed of private citizens (sometimes in conjunction with government officials) to meet periodically and advise them (hence the phrase “kitchen cabinets”) on matters such as the conduct of a war. Presidents have even created formal “cabinet committees” composed in part of private citizens. This case is no different. Here the President has formed a committee of his closest advisors— cabinet secretaries, White House advisors, and his wife — to advise him on a domestic issue he considers of the utmost priority.
Applying FACA to the Task Force does not raise constitutional problems simply because the Task Force is involved in proposing legislation. Instead, difficulties arise because of the Task Force’s operational proximity to the President himself — that is, because the Task Force provides advice and recommendations directly to the President. The Supreme Court has recognized that a President has a great need to receive advice confidentially:
[There is a] valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties; the importance of this confidentiality is too plain to require further discussion. Human experience teaches *587that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process. Whatever the nature of the privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in the exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties.
United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 705-06, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3106, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974) (footnotes omitted); see also Nixon v. Administrator of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 441-49, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2789-93, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977).... Article II not only gives the President the ability to consult with his advisors confidentially, but also, as a corollary, it gives him the flexibility to organize his advisors and seek advice from them as he wishes. In Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d at 1293-97, for example, we held that the President could create a Task Force composed of cabinet secretaries and other close advisors to study regulatory reform without having to comply with FOIA....
The ability to discuss matters confidentially is surely an important condition to the exercise of executive power. Without it, the President’s performance of any of his duties — textually explicit or implicit in Article II’s grant of executive power — would be made more difficult. In designing the Constitution, the Framers vested the executive power in one man for the very reason that he might maintain secrecy in executive operations....
This Article II right to confidential communications attaches not only to direct communications with the President, but also to discussions between his senior advisors. Certainly Department Secretaries and White House aides must be able to hold confidential meetings to discuss advice they secretly will render to the President.
Id. at 908-09 (second alteration in original) (footnote omitted). As is readily discernable from Clinton, great efforts are made to preserve the power of the Executive Office and the separa*588tion of powers at the federal level, even though the Framers chose not to include it expressly in the federal Constitution.
A challenge was made to the adequacy of the response to a disclosure request made under the FOIA in Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d 1288 (D.C.Cir.1993). The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia first identified the Government’s position: “The government declined to produce these documents on the grounds that neither the Vice President nor the Task Force are ‘agencies’ under FOIA.” Id. at 1291. The court quoted the portion of FOIA that defined an agency as “ ‘any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency.’ ” Id. The court then discussed several of the cases involving the separation of powers:
In Kissinger v. Reporters Comm, for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 100 S.Ct. 960, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980), the Supreme Court followed the legislative history and held that the Act did not cover “the President’s immediate personal staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the President.” Id. at 156, 100 S.Ct. at 971.
... The President does not create an “establishment” subject to FOIA every time he convenes a group of senior staff or departmental heads to work on a problem.
Id. at 1292, 1296 (internal quotation omitted).
Kissinger, 445 U.S. 136, 100 S.Ct. 960, 63 L.Ed.2d 267, which involved three appeals from denied requests for information under the FOIA, is perhaps the most interesting and comprehensive of the cases involving the FOIA. William Satire, a columnist, requested that the State Department produce transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s telephone conversations during a specified period. Satire’s request was limited to telephone conversations in which his name was mentioned or Kissinger discussed information “leaks” with certain White *589House officials. His request, though broad, was much more constrained than the blanket request by respondent in the case at bar, which requests virtually all available telephone records, diaries, appointments, and memos, without any specificity. The second request was by the Military Audit Project (MAP) for all records of conversations Kissinger made while he was Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. The third request was from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), and others, requesting Kissinger’s telephone notes made when he was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.
The Supreme Court held that the requesting parties “were not entitled to relief.” Id. at 147, 100 S.Ct. at 967, 63 L.Ed.2d
267. It stated, as relevant to the case before this Court:
The plaintiff requesters contend that even though the Federal Records and Records Disposal Acts do not contemplate a private right of action, the FOIA nevertheless supplies what was missing from those Acts — congressional intent to permit private actions to recover records wrongfully removed from Government custody. We are, however, unable to read the FOIA as supplying that congressional intent.
Id. at 150, 100 S.Ct. at 968, 63 L.Ed.2d 267. After disposing of the MAP and RCFP claims on other grounds irrelevant to the case sub judice, the Supreme Court addressed Safire’s claims:
As outlined above, the Act only prohibits the withholding of “agency records.” We conclude that the Safire request sought disclosure of documents which were not “agency records” within the meaning of the FOIA.
The FOIA does render the “Executive Office of the President” an agency subject to the Act. 5 U.S.C. § 552(e). The legislative history is unambiguous, however, in explaining that the “Executive Office” does not include the Office of the President.... Safire’s request was limited to a period of time in which Kissinger was serving as Assistant to the *590President. Thus these telephone notes were not “agency records” when they were made.
Id. at 155-56, 100 S.Ct. at 971, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (emphasis added).
I discern little difference in the FOIA’s use of the word “agency” and the use of the words “unit or instrumentality of the State government” in section 10-611(g)(1)(i) of the State Government Article. As indicated, the FOIA defined “agency” to include “any executive department ... or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government....” The Maryland Act applies to “instrumentalities of government.” While, apparently, the majority can make a distinction, I cannot. In my view, neither Act contemplated that the Office of the Chief Executive, be it the President or the Governor, would be covered by the respective disclosure laws. With respect to the FOIA, which was the forerunner to the state Act, the federal courts clearly have held as such, and have done so, at least in part, in reliance on the separation of powers implied by the federal Constitution. In Maryland, there need be no reliance on implication. The doctrine is firmly and expressly ingrained in our Declaration of Rights and our history. It is simply incongruous to me that the majority pays less respect to an express principle in the Maryland Constitution supported by our colonial history than the federal courts pay to the principle only implied by the federal Constitution.
That the federal decisions are based substantially on such principles is further supported by other cases involving the scope of related statutes. The Supreme Court, resolving the scope of tne federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by determining whether judicial review of an action of the President is possible under the Act on the ground that the President is an agency, stated in Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 796, 800-01, 112 S.Ct. 2767, 2773, 2775, 120 L.Ed.2d 636 (1992):
The APA provides for judicial review of “final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a *591court.” At issue in this case is whether the “final” action that appellees have challenged is that of an “agency” such that the federal courts may exercise their powers of review under the APA. We hold that the final action complained of is that of the President, and the President is not an agency within the meaning of the Act. Accordingly, there is no final agency action that may be reviewed under the APA standards.
... The President is not explicitly excluded from the APA’s purview, but he is not explicitly included, either. Out of respect for the separation of powers and the unique constitutional position of the President, we find that textual silence is not enough to subject the President to the provisions of the APA. [Citation omitted.]
Finally, in Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282, 289 (D.C.Cir. 1991), that court said:
When Congress decides purposefully to enact legislation restricting or regulating presidential action, it must make its intent clear. The Supreme Court has recognized that “[i]n traditionally sensitive areas, such as legislation affecting the federal balance, the requirement of clear statement assures that the legislature has in fact faced, and intended to bring into issue, the critical matters involved in decision.”
... The answer to whether the APA should apply to the President depends on an analysis of several factors, involving the President’s “constitutional powers, the multifarious responsibilities of his office, and his direct political accountability as the only elected official with a national constituency.” In the absence of any affirmative evidence that these issues were considered in the legislative process and that Congress passed the APA with the understanding that it would regulate presidential as well as other executive branch action, we refuse to hold that the President is an “agency” within the meaning of the APA. [Citation omitted; alteration in original.]
*592In my view, the Legislature did not intend to include the Office of the Governor, as opposed to the subordinate executive branch agencies, when it used the terms “unit or instrumentality of the State government,” any more than Congress intended to include the Executive Office of the President when it used the term “agency” of the government in the FOIA. Like the President’s position relative to the FOIA, the office of the Governor is not expressly included in the Maryland Act. “Textual silence” should not be enough to subject him to the Maryland statute.
Had the General Assembly passed a public information statute that was limited in its applicability to require the Office of the Governor, and it alone, to provide virtually unlimited disclosure of his activities to the press or the public, it clearly would be an unwarranted interference with the activities of a coordinate branch of government and, in my view, would have been violative of Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights. I see little difference in the effect of the Court’s interpretation of the statute at issue. To me, the application of the statute to the Office of the Governor violates the separation of powers, a fundamental foundation of the government of this State.
We have to look no further than the history of violence that occurred in the 1960’s when riots broke out in Maryland, resulting in the Governor deploying the National Guard to preserve the peace. Obviously, he had to confer with military advisors and receive advice on the deployment of troops. Of obvious necessity, in my view, was the need to keep such information, the meetings themselves and the decisions made, confidential. With the majority’s decision in this case, any member of the press or the public, including those contemplating riots, could demand access to that information even in real time. We should not presume that the world is full of people with harmless intent. The protection of these types of executive decision-making activities is guaranteed, as I perceive it, by Maryland’s constitutional separation of powers provision, that the majority today, in my view, regulates to relative *593impotence. If the separation of powers doctrine does not apply here, then where?
I would reverse and hold that, although the statute may apply to subordinate executive branch entities, it does not apply to the Office of the Governor. Chief Judge BELL has authorized me to state that he concurs with the views expressed herein.

. I discuss, infra, the conspicuous absence of any exemption in the State Public Information Act for the judiciary, while this branch is expressly exempted from the Open Meetings Act.

. The provision was moved to Article 6 in the Constitution of 1851, which also added the second phrase "and no person exercising the functions of one of said Departments shall assume or discharge the duties of any other.” This language, in its entirety, was moved back to Article 8 in the Constitution of 1864 and remained there alter the Constitution of 1867, which introduced the Governor’s veto power. An attempt to remove the separation of powers provision failed in 1968, when the proposed 1968 Constitution was rejected.

. "Historians credit Baron de Montesque, Spirit of the Laws (1748), for the concept of separation of powers, based on Montesque’s incorrect understanding of the English system.” Friedman, supra, at 689 n. 206.

. Most states, unlike the federal government, have explicitly expressed their preferences for the separation of powers in their constitutions. They include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. See Friedman, supra, at 688-89 n. 197.

. Wright held so despite recognizing the power of the Legislature to annul marriages and grant divorces. Though it seems unusual now, the Legislature apparently inherited the power to grant divorces from Parliament's assumption of the power to annul marriages. Such practice has long since been abolished. See Md. Const, art. 3, § 33.

. A body of Maryland law has developed which distinguishes and permits the delegation of legislative and quasi-judicial functions to administrative agencies. See, e.g., Armacost, 311 Md. at 77-82, 532 A.2d at 1062-65; Stillman, 291 Md. at 413-14, 435 A.2d at 756. In County Council v. Investors Funding Corp., 270 Md. 403, 436, 312 A.2d 225, 243 (1973), we said:
The constitutional doctrine of separation of powers ... does not itself inhibit the delegation to an administrative agency of a blend of executive or legislative powers with powers judicial in nature; the determining factor is not so much the specific powers granted to the administrative agency, but rather the relationship of the courts to the exercise of that power.
The present case involves not the delegation by the Legislature of duties and regulatory functions to regulatory entities created by it. Thus, this case is not factually or legally a regulatory doctrine case. The majority's view that the statute applies to the Office of the Governor, which results in the imposition of restrictions by the legislative branch on the executive, compromises the ability of the Governor to formulate policy, seek advice, arrive at solutions to basic governmental problems, secure preliminary work papers, and to preserve his independence otherwise.