Court Opinion

ID: 9789561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:38:29.878494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:23.193304
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION OF
KIDWELL, J.
The caseload of this court imposes a significant restraint on the writing of extended separate opinions, and especially on one which would explore the mysteries of judicial interpretation of statutes and constitutions. In this instance, I will express my reasons for not signing the majority opinion as briefly as is consistent with traditions of judicial courtesy.
*89I agree that state statutes prevail over the provisions of the Maui charter in every instance where the majority so concluded. I would also hold that the provisions of Chapter 13 of the Maui charter are similarly subject to the provisions of Chapter 281, Hawaii Revised Statutes. Although I depart from the result of the majority opinion only in this respect, I reach my conclusion by a materially different process from that of the majority.
Article VII, Section 2 of the 1968 Constitution grants to each county authority by its charter to determine its “executive, legislative and administrative structure and organization. ’ ’ This authority cannot be broader than the basic authority of the county to adopt a charter, which is confined to matters which are “for its own self-government. ’ ’ The powers granted to the counties by Section 2 of Article VII are, by Section 5, made subject to the power of the legislature to enact laws of state-wide concern. It seems quite apparent that Article VII reflects an assumption that matters relating to county self-government are not of state-wide concern, and that matters of state-wide concern do not pertain to county self-government.
Upon its adoption in 1968, Article VII cut across an existing body of statutes which prescribed both the structure and organization of county governments and the powers and functions of county officials and departments. The laws which they administered reflected, in varying degrees, elements of local concern and of state-wide concern. Article VII compelled a sorting out process, to which the legislature seems not have given any significant amount of attention. The present case requires that we participate in the sorting out process.
In my view, the essential difference between matters which pertain to county self-government and those which are of state-wide concern lies in whether the choices which a county makes are of significance only to the people of the county or are also of significance to the people of the state who do not reside in the county. Under this test, a county charter has constitutional superiority over state law with respect to the administrative structure and organization *90which deals with those matters which are not of significance to the rest of the state. This over-simplification undoubtedly conceals great difficulties in the application of the test, but I am satisfied that, with the exception mentioned above, the results reached by the majority opinion satisfy the test.
Thus, I agree that the various charter provisions which prevail over state la,w under the majority opinion are part of the structure and organization of county self-government. Also, in my view, the application of the state civil service and compensation laws (Chapters 76 and 77, HRS) to individual county officers and employees, and the designation, qualifications, powers and functions of the officials who administer those laws, are matters of state-wide concern. Although given the labels of county officers, the officers empowered by Part III of Chapter 76 and Part II of Chapter 77 to administer these state statutes in each of the counties exercise the functions of state officers and a change by a county in the administrative structure contemplated by the state statute could frustrate its purpose. For that reason, I concur in the conclusion of the majority that charter provisions which are in conflict with Chapters 76 and 77 must bow to state law.
The officers designated by Chapter 281, HRS, to administer the state liquor control law are, in my view, in relationships with the state and the county which are not distinguishable in material respects from those of the county civil service officers. Notwithstanding the powers granted to the county liquor commissions to issue non-uniform regulations with respect to matters left to their discretion by Chapter 281, the policies to be implemented by such regulations, are to be found in Chapter 281 rather than in county ordinances. Equally with respect to the civil service law, the compensation law and the liquor control law, the administration of the state law in each of the counties is a matter of state-wide concern which would be subject to frustration if the designation, qualifications, powers and functions of the officials named in the state statutes were not subject to state control, to the extent to which the state chooses to exercise control. Equally in each instance, therefore, these officials are part of *91state government rather than county self-government in the sense in which I have attempted to reconcile the provisions of Article VII.
The majority opinion differentiates between civil service and liquor control, and concludes that “the regulation of the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating liquor within a county is a local concern”, solely upon the authority of a report of the Senate Committee on Judiciary in 1963, relating to the statutory delegation to the county executive officers of authority to appoint the members of county liquor commissions. Yet the fact that the legislature followed the same policy in delegating the appointment of county civil service commissions to the county executive officers does not deter the majority from concluding that the civil service law prevails over charter provisions. The legislation to which the committee report pertained did not, in my view, make liquor control a function of county self-government. The legislature’s intent to retain this governmental function to the state, as it did the administration of the civil service and compensation laws, is to be found in the legislation as enacted. Our task in this case is to examine that legislation in the context of Article VII of the 1968 Constitution. What was said in a legislative committee report in 1963, without reference to or knowledge of the concept of county self-government created by the 1968 Constitution, seems to me do have little weight in the present inquiry. In relying so exclusively on that committee report and failing to examine the administrative structure which the liquor control law provides, the majority opinion fails to sustain its conclusion.
Accordingly, I concur in the manner in which the majority opinion adjudicates this controversy, except for the determination that any of the provisions of Chapter 13 of the charter prevail over the provisions of Chapter 281, HRS, as to which I would reach the opposite conclusion.