Noecker v. Woods

Citations

• 259 Pa. 160
• 102 A. 507
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 534

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional law — Constitution of Pennsylvania — Schedule to the Constitution, Sec. lb — Judicial districts — Designation—Act of April 2b, 1917, P. L:95 — Validity.</p> <p>1. Section 14 of the Schedule to the Constitution of Pennsylvania, providing that the general assembly shall at the next succeeding session after each decennial census and not oftener, designate the several judicial districts as required by this Constitution, is mandatory in form, and indicates a clear intention on the part of the framers of the Constitution, and of the people who adopted it, that judicial apportionment acts are to be passed at definitely designated sessions of the legislature.</p> <p>2. What the Constitution specifically requires to be done by the legislature at a definitely designated session cannot be done at any other.</p> <p>3. It is always to be presumed that the legislature performs the duties enjoined upon it by the Constitution, and when a session immediately succeeding a decennial census is allowed to pass without the enactment of a judicial apportionment act, a fair presumption is that the legislature intended to readopt the existing judicial apportionment for the succeeding ten years. In such ease the judicial districts of the State as then constituted must continue until .the session next succeeding the next decennial census.</p> <p>4. The Act of April 24, 1917, P. L. 95, designating the several judicial districts of the Commonwealth and providing for the election and commission of judges learned in the law therefor, violates Section 14 of the Schedule to the Constitution, in that it was not passed at the next session of the legislature succeeding a decennial census and is void.</p>