Court Opinion

ID: 9619665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:31:08.478964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:43.317926
License: Public Domain

*768OPALA, Justice,
concurring:
In this original proceeding for a prerogative writ the dispositive issue before us is whether the legislature must conform its actions to an opinion of the Attorney General (AG) declaring an enactment to be invalid insofar as its terms extend beyond a single, narrowly defined, purpose that is deemed constitutionally permissible. Our answer — given in the negative — frees the legislative department from obedience to the AG’s opinion as a binding declaration of law. While I fully concur in the court’s pronouncement, I write separately to articulate some of the reasons which impel me to the court’s view.
The petitioner is the presiding officer of the Senate. He appears here in his representative capacity and seeks relief from the challenged AG opinion because (a) extant case law appears to impart to that opinion the effect of law that is binding on all public officials, including the legislative department, and (b) the AG opinion 'presently and effectively impedes legislative freedom of action with respect to the subject addressed in the opinion.
Our past pronouncements clearly accord the petitioner standing to prosecute this action. Draper v. State, Okl., 621 P.2d 1142 (1980); Application of State ex rel. Dept. of Transp., Okl., 646 P.2d 605, 609 (1982); Democratic Party v. Estep, Okl., 652 P.2d 271, 274 (1982).
The controversy is lively, real and the requirement of justiciability hence clearly met. Application of State ex rel. Dept. of Transp., supra, at 609. By extant case law the challenged AG opinion is binding on the petitioner and, under the facts of this case, only this court can relieve him of the duty to comply with the terms of that opinion.1 Assumption of our original cognizance is hence essential to facilitate a harmonious and constitutionally permissible allocation of responsibilities between two departments functioning at the highest level of state government. In so doing we wisely avoid determining here the substantive merits of the present controversy over the constitutional validity of the legislative enactment. We merely hold that no official or agency is bound by the AG’s view of a constitutional infirmity.
This court may not, by a rule of decisional law, impart binding force in futuro to any judicially untested AG’s declaration of uneonstitutionality. To do so would constitute an unlawful delegation by this court of judicial powers to an executive official whose decision-making occurs dehors the framework of adjudicative process. Art. 4 § 1, Okl. Const.; see in this connection, Sterling Refining Co. v. Walker, 165 Okl. 45, 25 P.2d 312, 316-320 (1933).

. Grand River Dam Authority v. State, Okl., 645 P.2d 1011, 1016 (1982). Only this court can change the precedential effect of its past opinions. Wimberly v. Buford, Okl., 660 P.2d 1050, 1051 (1983).