Court Opinion

ID: 9537091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:12:24.869663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:59.624935
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — The doctrine of separation of powers found its first clear expression in the writing of Baron de Montesquieu, where in Spirit of the Laws (1748), he noted:
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty, because apprehension might arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separate from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.
There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting the laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the cases of individuals.
Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, 35 Law & Contemp. Prob. 108, at 109 (1970). In England the development of the doctrine of judicial independence preceded our constitutional convention. In 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, the principal statute dealing with judicial tenure in England and the one substantially *753followed there since that time. That act provided for tenure during good behavior and established the foundation of the modern English judicial system. Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, 35 Law & Contemp. Prob. 108, at 111 (1970).
In addition to their familiarity with the writing of de Montesquieu and the English Act of Settlement, participants in the constitutional convention in this country had had experiences which led them to express concern over excessive domination by one branch of government over the others. At the Philadelphia convention, James Madison stated, “[E]xperience in all states has evinced a powerful tendency in the legislature to absorb all power into its vortex. This was the real source of danger to the American [state] Constitutions; and suggested the necessity of giving every defensive authority to the other departments that was consistent with republican principles.” Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, 35 Law & Contemp. Prob. 108, at 113 (1970). (F. Green, Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States, 1776-1860, at 103 (1930)). No specific clause in the constitution was inserted separating the powers of government among the three branches. They were classified and assigned to the respective departments, however, and the principle of separation of powers was firmly established. The function of this concept was best described by Madison in The Federalist No. 51, at 320-22 (New Am. Library ed. 1961) (J. Madison):
To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments as laid down in the Constitution?
. . . [T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. . . . Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.
*754The doctrine of separation of powers is not confined to the federal constitution. As noted by Justice William O. Douglas in The Anatomy of Liberty, The Rights of Man Without Force (1963), at page 54:
Six of the original states explicitly affirmed the doctrine of the separation of powers. Today the theory is formally announced in about forty state constitutions. The other states make no such formal declaration; nor does the Constitution of the United States. Yet the same result is reached because these other states’ constitutions, as the federal constitution, create three departments of government, vesting the executive power in one, the legislative power in another, and the judicial power in a third.
Washington is among those states which recognize the separation of powers theory by vesting in its constitution the “judicial power of the state” in a separate branch of government.. Const. art. 4, § 1. Having been given this power, the judicial branch is further entrusted with the duty to insure that “[jjustice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay.” Const. art. 1, § 10. We have recognized and applied the doctrine of separation of powers in Besselman v. Moses Lake, 46 Wn.2d 279, 280 P.2d 689 (1955), and Tacoma v. O’Brien, 85 Wn.2d 266, 534 P.2d 114 (1975). In furtherance of the principle of separation of powers we have refused to interfere with the executive branch of the government (State v. International Typographical Union, 57 Wn.2d 151, 356 P.2d 6 (1960); State v. Fair, 35 Wash. 127, 76 P. 731 (1904)), or with the legislative branch (Hoppe v. State, 78 Wn.2d 164, 469 P.2d 909 (1970); Seattle v. Hill, 72 Wn.2d 786, 435 P.2d 692 (1967)), and insisted that those branches do not usurp the functions of this one. Tacoma v. O’Brien, supra.
For the courts to effectively maintain their independence as a separate branch of government, they must have the power to do all things that are reasonably necessary for the proper administration of their office within the scope of their jurisdiction. This includes not only the power to con*755trol the decision making and the adjudicatory process, but also the ancillary functions which are subordinate to the decision making process.
It is simply impossible for a judge to do nothing but judge; a legislator to do nothing but legislate; a governor to do nothing but execute the laws. The proper exercise of each of these three great powers of government necessarily includes some ancillary inherent capacity to do things which are normally done by the other departments.
Thus, both the legislative department and the judicial department have certain housekeeping chores which are prerequisite to the exercise of legislative and judicial power. And, to accomplish these housekeeping chores both departments have inherently a measure of administrative authority not unlike that primarily and exclusively vested in the executive department.
The inherent power of the judiciary is a judicial power, but only in the sense that it is a natural necessary concomitant to the judicial power.
The inherent power of the Court is non-adjudicatory. It does not deal with justiciable matters. It relates to the administration of the business of the Court.
Wayne Circuit Judges v. Wayne County, 383 Mich. 10, 20-21, 172 N.W.2d 436 (1969), modified on other grounds, 386 Mich. 1, 190 N.W.2d 228 (1971).
Even without statutory enactment, the judiciary possesses all powers necessary for the free and untrammeled exercise of its functions. Board of Comm’rs v. Stout, 136 Ind. 53, 62, 35 N.E. 683, 685 (1893). The constitutional provision in our state vesting judicial power in the courts carries with it, by necessary implication, the authority necessary to the exercise of that power. Such authority is not limited to adjudication, but encompasses certain ancillary functions, such as rule making and judicial administration, which are essential if the courts are to carry out their constitutional mandate. O’Coin’s Inc. v. Treasurer, ....... Mass. ......., 287 N.E.2d 608, 611 (1972). To perform these functions courts must have the ability to determine and compel payment of those sums of money which are reason*756able and necessary to carry out their mandate and duty to administer justice if they are to be in reality a coequal independent branch of our government. Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, 442 Pa. 45, 52, 274 A.2d 193, 197 (1971).
In the exercise of their power to determine and compel payment of sums of money “the inherent power of courts is not exhausted when the needs of administration of justice have been declared and urged upon the legislative councils. There remains a narrower area in which the courts have inherent power to go further than merely declare the existence of a need. It is an area in which the courts have inherent power to bind the State or the county contractually.” Wayne Circuit Judges v. Wayne County, supra at 22. Courts in other states have frequently extended these principles to disputes concerning their responsibility for juvenile courts. Several have held specifically that courts possessed the inherent power to appoint probation officers and other personnel necessary to a proper administration of justice and to see that they are paid. State ex rel. Weinstein v. St. Louis County, 451 S.W.2d 99 (Mo. 1970); Commonwealth ex rel. Carroll v. Tate, 442 Pa. 45, 274 A.2d 193 (1971); Noble County Council v. State ex rel. Fifer, 234 Ind. 172, 125 N.E.2d 709 (1955). As the court noted in In re Salaries for Probation Officers, 58 N.J. 422, 425, 278 A.2d 417 (1971):
It may be conceded that the appointment of probation officers and the fixing of their salaries are not, at least in the purest sense, judicial acts. But the doctrine of the separation of powers was never intended to create, and certainly never did create, utterly exclusive spheres of competence. The compartmentalization of governmental powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches has never been watertight.
In Noble County Council v. State ex rel. Fifer, supra, the court recognized that its ability to appoint a probation officer and fix his salary within reasonable standards and to require appropriation and payment of it did not rest upon *757legislative authorization but on its inherent power. The court stated, at page 181:
These mandates [constitutional mandates to administer justice completely, speedily and without delay] necessarily carry with them the right to quarters appropriate to the office and personnel adequate to perform the functions thereof. The right to appoint a necessary staff of personnel necessarily carries with it the right to have such appointees paid a salary commensurate with their responsibilities. The right cannot be made amenable to and/or denied by a county council or the legislature itself.
For these reasons I believe the courts clearly possess the power necessary to properly insure they can function efficiently as a separate branch of government. I can concur in the majority opinion because there is no contention that the salaries established by the collective bargaining process are inadequate to attract competent personnel, and the court’s approval of the salary structure may be implied. Without this approval, express or implied, there would be a violation of the separation of powers doctrine inasmuch as inadequate staffing can cripple the ability of the courts to perform their established functions.
Stafford, C.J., and Hunter and Horowitz, JJ., concur with Utter, J.