Tugman v. City of Chicago

Citations

• 78 Ill. 405

Syllabus

<p>1. Municipal corporations — ordinances must not be unreasonable. Where power is conferred upon a municipal corporation to enact by-laws and ordinances for the better government of the inhabitants of the municipality, it can not, in the exercise of that power, enact ordinances that are unreasonable, oppressive, or such as will create a monopoly.</p> <p>2. An ordinance which makes an act done by one penal, and imposes no penalty for the same act done, under like circumstances, by another, can not be sanctioned or sustained, because it would be unjust and unreasonable.</p> <p>3. An ordinance which prevents one citizen engaging in a particular kind of business in a certain locality under a penalty, whilst another is permitted to engage in the same business in the same locality, is not only unreasonable, and therefore void, but its direct tendency is to create a monopoly, which the law will not tolerate.</p> <p>4. The fact that certain persons were engaged in a particular kind of business in a given locality at the time of the adoption of an ordinance, would not authorize the municipal corporation, by such ordinance, to permit such persons to continue their business, whilst it prohibited others from engaging in the same business in the same locality.</p> <p>5. Legislative power—-to whom, it may be delegated. The legislative power is vested by the constitution in the General Assembly, and ordinarily it can not be delegated. The right, however, of the legislature to empower municipal corporations to make by-laws and ordinances for the welfare and government of the inhabitants of the corporation, can not be denied.</p> <p>6. Where such power is conferred upon a municipal corporation, it is exercised by a body elected by the people to be affected; but if the legislature possess the power to delegate legislative authority to a body to be appointed by some judicial officer of the State, the people of the corporation might be deprived of self-government; they would be govern