Court Opinion

ID: 9598226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:06:40.596862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:00.263582
License: Public Domain

*365Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. While the majority opinion presents a thoughtful analysis of the treatment of this issue by the United States Supreme Court, we need look no further than our own Constitution.
Art. I, Sec. II, Par. Ill of the 1976 Georgia Constitution (Code Ann. § 2-203) provides: “Protection to person and property is the paramount duty of government, and shall be impartial and complete.”
Paternity either is, or is not, independent of any judicial procedure. The exclusion of a child from the estate of his father (but not of his mother) as provided in former Code Ann. § 113-904 (a) is a bar sinister which creates an invidious distinction between children of the same father — as between themselves, and, as a class, between them and the children of the same mother. Thus the law would impose a penalty upon the only person concerned in a birth out of wedlock who cannot possibly be found at fault.
The statute violates the constitutional requirement of impartial and complete protection to person and property.
“Legislative acts in violation of this Constitution, or the Constitution of the United States, are void, and the Judiciary shall so declare them.” 1976 Ga. Const., Art. I, Sec. II, Par. VIII (Code Ann. § 2-208).
I believe that Code Ann. § 113-904 (a) and its complementary provisions are unconstitutional, and would so declare them.