Regional Government of Alduria v. Federal Assembly
| Regional Government of Alduria v. Federal Assembly | |
|---|---|
| Gouvernement régional d'Alduria contre l'Assemblée fédérale | |
| Case details | |
| Court | High Court of Justice of Nouvelle Alexandrie |
| Case number | HCJ-1691-0058 |
| Citation | 7 N.A.L.R. 23 (1692) |
| Filed | 9.XIII.1691 AN |
| Argued | 4-5.III.1692 AN |
| Decided | 18.VI.1692 AN |
| Parties | |
| Petitioner | Regional Government of Alduria |
| Respondent | Federal Assembly |
| Petitioner's counsel | Attorney General of Alduria Séverin Lavergne |
| Respondent's counsel | Solicitor General Léandre Fauvel |
| Amicus curiae | Regional Government of the Wechua Nation |
| Holding | |
| An Act of the federal legislature made within the powers that Article 2 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago assigns to the Federation is law in every Region, and a regional law that conflicts with it cannot stand. The regulation of commerce between the Regions belongs to the Federation under Article 2(5). The provisions of the Aldurian Customs Code imposing duties on goods moving between Alduria and the other Regions are of no effect. | |
| Disposition | Complaint dismissed; the duties provisions of the Aldurian Customs Code declared inoperative against the Customs Union Act, 1691 |
| Court membership | |
| Vote | 5-1 |
| Majority opinion | Chief Justice Qatuilla Cuya Huanca |
| Joined by | Associate Justices Warawa Vilca Quispe, Honoré Duval, Beatriz de Almagro, Amaru Yupanki
|
| Dissent | Associate Justice François Beaumont |
| Case history | |
| Prior history | Request to the Federal Assembly for exemption from the Customs Union Act denied (1691); complaint filed directly with the High Court under Article 52 |
| Laws and precedents | |
| Laws cited | Proclamation of Punta Santiago, Articles 2, 52, 54 Customs Union Act, 1691 Aldurian Customs Code |
| Proclamation articles | Article 2 (division of powers; enumerated federal powers; residual powers of the Regions); Article 52 (High Court tasks); Article 54 (voidness of acts after judgment)
|
| Related cases | Wechua Mining Consortium v. Regional Government of Valencia (1693) Citizens' Electoral Alliance v. Federal Elections Commission (1695) Regional Government of New Luthoria v. Council of State (1696) North Lyrica v. Council of State (1753) |
| Classification | |
| Areas of law | Constitutional law, federalism |
| Keywords | Federal supremacy, customs union, inter-regional commerce, division of powers, judicial review |
Regional Government of Alduria v. Federal Assembly, 7 N.A.L.R. 23 (1692 AN), is a decision of the High Court of Justice of Nouvelle Alexandrie and the first in which the Court held a regional law inoperative for conflict with an Act of the federal legislature. The Court held that an Act made within the powers Article 2 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago assigns to the Federation is law in every Region, and that the duties Alduria continued to collect on goods moving between the Regions could not stand against the Customs Union Act of 1691 AN.
The respondent named in the caption is the Federal Constituent Assembly, the interim federal legislature that sat from 1685 AN until the first general election in 1693 AN, and which contemporaries called the Federal Assembly. The decision supplied the foundation on which the Court's later federalism cases were built, beginning with Citizens' Electoral Alliance v. Federal Elections Commission (1695 AN) and Regional Government of New Luthoria v. Council of State (1696 AN).
Background
The customs union
The union of Alduria and the Wechua Nation in 1685 AN joined two states that each brought a full revenue system into the Federation. The Federal Constituent Assembly, charged with drafting the new constitution and with the basic body of laws the Federation would need, passed the Customs Union Act in 1691 AN. The Act abolished duties on goods moving between the Regions, established a single external tariff collected at the Federation's ports of entry, and directed that the proceeds be divided among the Regions by formula.
Alduria's duties
Alduria had entered the union with the customs code of its republican years, which levied duties at its river ports and highland crossings on goods entering from what had become the Wechua Nation. The Regional Government continued to collect them after the Act took effect, maintaining that the code was the law of Alduria until the government of Alduria repealed it. Wechua wool, ore, and salt paid the old rates through the season of 1691 AN, and the Regional Government of the Wechua Nation lodged protests at Cárdenas.
The Regional Government of Alduria petitioned the Assembly for an exemption preserving its duties until the new constitution settled the revenue question. The Assembly denied the request, and Alduria filed a complaint against the legislative process directly with the High Court under Article 52 of the Proclamation, asking the Court to declare that the Act could not displace the law of a Region.
Arguments
Petitioner's arguments
The Attorney General of Alduria, Séverin Lavergne, argued that the Assembly was a constituent body, convened to draft a constitution, and that the basic laws it passed in the interim bound the federal administration alone. The law of Alduria had force in Alduria until Alduria's own institutions withdrew it. He pressed Article 2(6): the powers not assigned to the Federation belong to the Regions, and the collection of revenue at Alduria's borders had belonged to Alduria for as long as Alduria had borders. Nothing in the Proclamation, he submitted, gave any organ of the Federation the power to annul a regional law.
Respondent's arguments
Solicitor General Léandre Fauvel answered that Article 2(5) names the regulation of inter-regional commerce among the powers of the Federation, and that a duty charged at the boundary between two Regions is that commerce, taxed. The Customs Union Act was therefore an exercise of a power the Proclamation had already moved. Whatever survived of the republican code, its border duties survived only until the Federation legislated, and the Federation had legislated. The Regional Government of the Wechua Nation, appearing as amicus, submitted that its traders had borne the duties of a foreign frontier inside their own country, and that the union was worthless if its internal borders could still be armed with tariffs.
Opinion of the Court
| Justice | Appointed | Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Qatuilla Cuya Huanca (Chief Justice) | 1689 AN | Majority (author) |
| Warawa Vilca Quispe | 1685 AN | Majority |
| Honoré Duval | 1685 AN | Majority |
| Beatriz de Almagro | 1686 AN | Majority |
| François Beaumont | 1688 AN | Dissent (author) |
| Amaru Yupanki | 1690 AN | Majority |
Chief Justice Qatuilla Cuya Huanca, writing for five justices, began with the division Article 2 makes. What the Proclamation assigns to the Federation it takes, to the same measure, from the Regions; the two grants cannot both be full. An Act made within an assigned power is therefore law in every Region by the terms of the union itself, whatever the Region's own codes may say. The regulation of commerce between the Regions stood plainly within Article 2(5), and a duty collected at a regional boundary was the most direct regulation of that commerce a government could devise.
The Chief Justice then turned to the remedy. The Proclamation, he wrote, had given the Court the office of keeping every order of government within its powers, and Articles 52 and 54 said in terms that a federal Act judged repugnant to the Proclamation is void. It would be an idle office that could annul the Federation's excesses but had to leave a Region's excesses standing:
- "What Article 2 has given to the Federation, no Region may take back at its border posts. The duties of Alduria fall, not because the Federation is greater than the Regions, but because the Proclamation is greater than both."
The Court dismissed the complaint and declared the duties provisions of the Aldurian Customs Code inoperative so far as they reached goods moving between the Regions. The remainder of the code, and Alduria's revenue powers within its own territory, the opinion left untouched.
Dissent
Associate Justice François Beaumont dissented. The Proclamation, he observed, provided for the voidness of federal Acts and Orders after judgment; it said nothing of the laws of the Regions:
- "The Proclamation tells this Court when the Federation's acts are void. It says nothing of Alduria's. I would not write what the founders did not."
The majority had inferred a power of annulment from the structure of the union, and structure, in his view, was not a grant. The duties were unwise, and Alduria would have done well to repeal them, but the cure lay with Alduria's parliament, or with the elected Cortes the coming constitution promised, and not with six judges reading between the Proclamation's lines.
Aftermath
Alduria wound down its border collections over the following year, and the Assembly appropriated a sum in settlement of duties collected after the Act took effect. The rule of the case, that a regional law in conflict with a valid federal Act cannot stand, passed into the Court's settled doctrine and was the ground on which its federalism cases proceeded. The Court returned to the division of powers the following year in Wechua Mining Consortium v. Regional Government of Valencia (1693 AN), and again in Citizens' Electoral Alliance v. Federal Elections Commission (1695 AN) and Regional Government of New Luthoria v. Council of State (1696 AN), which fixed the limits of the doctrine from the federal side.
