Court Opinion

ID: 9570068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:19:55.668132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:50.426908
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The statute casts the secretary of state in a tripartite role of prosecutor, judge and jury. Such power, in the hands of a tyrant (present officials excluded), obviously could be employed as an instrument of destruction. The statute provides no procedure for review by, or appeal to a judicial tribunal, but simply allows for the destruction of a vested franchise if, after a hearing, (the nature and extent of which are undefined) a showing, (the nature and extent of which likewise are undefined), is made “to the satisfaction of the secretary of state” that the corporation was used to violate the law. No provision is made requiring that findings be made or entered, and the extraordinary remedies available to a person, in my opinion, are no safeguard against a statute which, I think, not only permits but encourages the denial of com stitutional guaranties against taking property and circumscribing liberties. I do not believe the magic phrase “administrative law” cures the malady this statute stands ready to spread, nor do I believe that any or all non-profit charters are issued only on condition that the corporation thus created must live unprotected from the lash of a possible despot or ignoramus, both of whom are not unknown to our political history.