Court Opinion

ID: 9549283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:15:39.632472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:04.691900
License: Public Domain

Herd, J.,
dissenting: It stands undisputed that the legislative intent in the enactment of K.S.A. 12-4101 through 12-4701 was to provide Kansas with a code of procedure for municipal courts. K.S.A. 12-4102 states:
“This code governs the practice and procedure in all cases in municipal courts.” Emphasis added.
K.S.A. 12-4103 states:
“This code is intended to provide for the just determination of every proceeding for violation of city ordinances. Its provisions shall be construed to secure simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjus*340tifiable expense and delay. If no procedure is provided by this code, the court shall proceed in any lawful manner consistent with any applicable law and not inconsistent with this code.”
One would be hard put to draft a more definitive statement of legislative intent and purpose. Article 12, § 5 of the Kansas Constitution provides a city may, pursuant to powers of home rule, escape the confines of legislation in the event such enactments are not “of statewide concern applicable uniformly to all cities . . . .” I am advised K.S.A. 12-4105 renders the Code of Procedure for Municipal Courts not uniformly applicable because it provides:
“In cities of the first class, the person selected [for municipal judge] shall be an attorney admitted to the practice of law in the state of Kansas.”
The remaining fifty-seven code provisions are admittedly uniformly applicable.
This court stated in Claflin v. Walsh, 212 Kan. 1, 7, 509 P.2d 1130 (1973):
“[A] city’s power to act in the same area should be upheld unless the legislature has clearly preempted the field so as to preclude city action.”
The legislature clearly intended to preempt the field and for solid reasons. Public knowledge of court procedure is essential for due process. More people have contact with the municipal courts than with all other courts combined, making procedural due process in the municipal courts very important. Most people form their impressions of courts and the law from their experience in municipal court. It is a matter of statewide concern well illustrated by the long and arduous work of the Kansas Judicial Council which studied the matter for a number of years. That study culminated in the drafted bill submitted to the legislature in 1973, S.B. 205.
I would hold the Code of Procedure for Municipal Courts exempt from Home Rule because it is of statewide concern and is uniformly applicable to all cities on authority of Claflin. All of the procedural provisions of the act meet the strictest construction of the constitution. The only issue of contention pertains to judicial qualification in first class cities. Since judicial qualification is not procedural and the legislature intended the act to be uniformly applicable, I would so construe it. As we stated in State v. Motion Picture Entitled “The Bet,”219 Kan. 64, 71, 547 P.2d 760 (1976):
*341“We realize that to construe the statute to meet constitutional standards we may be subject to the accusation that we are invading the province of the legislature. However, after considering the manifest intention of the legislature when it passed K.S.A. 21-4301, et seq., and our past difficulties in this area of regulating obscenity we feel fully justified in construing and limiting the present statute to meet constitutional standards. Such was the original intent of the Kansas legislature.”
More recently, this court stated in State v. Next Door Cinema Corp., 225 Kan. 112, 118, 587 P.2d 326 (1978):
“As such the language is mere surplusage and may be omitted from the statute without doing violence to the obvious intent of the legislature.
“ ‘In construing a statute, the purpose or intent of the legislature governs when that intent can be ascertained from the statute, even though words or references at some place in the statute must be omitted or inserted.’ Parker v. Continental Casualty Co., 191 Kan. 674, Syl. ¶ 4, 383 P.2d 937 (1963).”
Although both “The Bet” and Next Door Cinema dealt with judicial construction of the constitutionality of legislation, I believe the court’s strong reliance on legislative intent in statutory construction is applicable here.
The court possesses inherent authority to draft and amend the procedural rules used in courts. That authority has been specifically recognized with respect to K.S.A. 60-2607. Gard, Highlights of the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure, 2 Washburn L.J. 199, 202 (1963). Similar powers are provided in K.S.A. 1979 Supp. 22-4601 and K.S.A. 12-4701. The action taken by the majority erodes this power and with respect to the municipal court code, relinquishes it to individual city councils and city governing boards to create a disjointed mass of procedural rules that vary from city to city. In the case of Junction City, those procedural rules contain provisions of doubtful constitutionality.
In the interest of good government, we should have used our powers of construction and construed the statute to conform to legislative intent, striking the judicial qualification provision from the code of procedure, thereby leaving a uniform code of municipal court procedure for the citizens of this state.
Schroeder, C.J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.