Court Opinion

ID: 9722943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:56:52.309568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:42.891310
License: Public Domain

SICKEL, J.
(dissenting). In this, as in all actions, it must appear that the parties are engaged in an actual and justiciable controversy. A controversy is justiciable only when there is present an active antagonistic assertion of legal rights on one side and denial thereof on the other concerning a real, not a mere theoretical question and where it affects a right which can be finally settled and determined by entering a judgment for either party.
The secretary of state is the defendant in this action. She has filed intervenor’s nominating petitions and will certify intervenor as a candidate for the primary election unless restrained by the court. She has not raised the question of the intervenor’s ineligibility for the office of governor. The only briefs or arguments presented to the court in this case *329are those favorable to the entry of judgment for intervenor for the relief demanded in his complaint. Therefore, in my opinion, the secretary of state is not an adverse party.
Disqualification of a candidate cannot be tested before election by residents, electors and taxpayers in an action against the secretary of state, either by writ of prohibition or under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, and when so brought the court has no jurisdiction to enter a binding judgment. The courts cannot decide speculative rights or duties which may not arise in the future, but only such rights and duties as involve actual controversy, presented by adverse parties and in which a binding judgment may be entered. Under the circumstances any judgment entered in this case must necessarily be advisory only, and the question of eligibilty may still be litigated later by the real parties in interest.
In my opinion judgment should be entered dismissing the action.