People v. Toal

Citations

• 3 Cal. Unrep. 227
• 23 P. 203
• 1890 Cal. LEXIS 1158

Syllabus

<p>Inferior Courts—Manner of Establishing.—Constitutional article 6, section 1, provides that “the judicial power of the state shall be vested in the senate sitting as a court of impeachment, in a supreme court, superior courts, justices of the peace, and such inferior courts as the legislature may establish in any incorporated city or town, or city and county.” 'Section 13 provides that the legislature shall fix by law the jurisdiction of any inferior courts which may be established in pursuance of section 1, and shall fix by law the powers, duties and responsibilities of the judges thereof. Held, that an inferior court can be established only by the passage of an act of the legislature, and its approval by the governor, or its passage over his veto, in the same manner as any other law is enacted under constitutional article 4, sections 15, 16.1</p> <p>Police Courts—Manner of Establishing.—Laws of 1887, pages 88-90 (Constitutional 16th Amend., amending article 11, section 8), provides that any city of more than ten thousand, and not more than one hundred thousand inhabitants may frame a charter for its own government “consistent with and subject to the constitution and laws of the state,” and, if ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the city, it shall be submitted to the legislature for its approval or rejection as a whole and, if approved -by a majority vote of the members elected to each house, it shall become the charter of such city, and the organic law thereof, and “shall supersede any existing charter, and any amendment thereof, and all special laws inconsistent with such charter.” Held, that this does not dispense with the requirements of constitutional article 6, section 13, and that the provisions of a charter establishing a police or inferior court in such city which depend alone for their validity on a joint resolution of approval of the charter by a majority of the members of the legislature, but in no way submitted to or passed on by the g