Court Opinion

ID: 9585726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:03:15.514483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.762642
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
concurring specially.
Article VI, Sec. XIII, Par. I (Code Ann. § 2-4201) of the Constitution of 1976 provides that a district attorney ". . . shall have practiced law for three years next preceding his election.*’ This requirement must be interpreted to mean the practice of law in Georgia. If it were not so, then the practice of law in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, would suffice. If practice of law in Kuala Lampur were to satisfy the requirement, then the requirement would have no reasonable basis and would be invalid as an unreasonable impairment of the right to hold public office in violation of the 14th Amendment. To *572prevent the requirement from being so overbroad as to be invalid, it must be interpreted to be limited to the practice of law in Georgia. As thus understood, the superior court requirement in the companion Code section, § 24-2901, is not an additional qualification on elective office. Code Ann. §§ 9-102, 9-112, 9-129. See Lucas v. Woodward, 240 Ga. 770 (2) (243 SE2d 28) (1978).1
Although appellant has been an assistant district attorney in Georgia for two years, he does not meet the 3-year Georgia practice requirement and therefore is not eligible to hold the office of district attorney. Although his other enumerations of error might have some merit, in the end he could not hold the office being sought and he, his opponent and the voters are entitled to have notice of that fact at this time. I therefore concur specially in the judgment.

 An argument perhaps could be made that the phrase "shall have practiced law” means "in the United States” as opposed to "in Georgia.” To so interpret the constitutional phrase would render the Code section unconstitutional. Lucas v. Woodward, supra. There are valid reasons for requiring a district attorney to have practiced law in Georgia for three years and where the Constitution must be interpreted in any event, it should be interpreted both reasonably and so as to uphold existing law rather than so as to invalidate existing law.