Lawson v. Jeffries

Citations

• 47 Miss. 686

Syllabus

<p>1. Ordinance op constitutional convention op 1868, granting new trials.— The ordinance of April 29, 1868, by the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of that year, granting new trials upon certain classes of final judgments and decrees referred to, and on certain conditions therein named, was not a legislative but a judicial act, and therefore unauthorized and void.</p> <p>2. Judicial acts by legislative bodies. — The decisions are, and have always been, uniform in all the states, that legislative bodies have not authority to perform judicial acts.</p> <p>3. Co-ordinate powers op government. — The separation of the legislative, judicial and executive powers of government is a fundamental principle of American constitutional jurisprudence, and cannot be violated, even by a constitutional convention.</p> <p>4. Power op constitutional conventions. — Constitutional conventions have no more power, in this respect, than legislatures (9 Yerg. 495), and are limited to preliminary, temporary and provisional legislation.</p> <p>5. Same — judgments.—Delegates to constitutional conventions represent the sovereignty of the state, and are unrestricted in the propositions they shall submit to the people; but even ratification by the people cannot validate violations of the national constitution and of rights already established by judgments which had become final under pre-existing laws.</p>