delivered the opinion of the Court.
Thе question presented in these cases is whether the petitioners (Donald Bullock and Charles L. DuDonis), 1 who *282 are presently confined in the Patuxent Institution, are entitled to remove the petitions they filed, for a redetermination of the status of each as a defective delinquent, from the Criminal Court of Baltimore to some other court for hearing.
The question to be dеcided is before us on the motion of the State to dismiss the appeals of the petitioners from identical orders of the Circuit Court for Howard County (to which the petitions had been removed) remanding the petitions for redetermination of status to the Criminal Court of Baltimore because there was no constitutional or statutory authority for the removals. Since the only question on appeal is the same as that raised by the motion to dismiss, it is apparent that the ruling on the motion will be dispositive of the appeals. 2
When the petitions fоr redetermination of status came on for hearings in the Criminal Court of Baltimore each of the petitioners filed a suggestion of removal pursuant to Section 8 of Article IV of the Constitution of Maryland and Maryland Rule 542. The Criminal Court of Baltimore ordered the cases removed to the Circuit Court for Howard County. That court, in ruling on the motion of the State’s Attorney for a remand of the petitions to the court of original jurisdiction concluded that “since there was no constitutional nor statutory authority for the removal of these cases to [thе Circuit Court for Howard County], they must be remanded to the Criminal Court of Baltimore.” We agree.
Section 8 of Article IV of the Constitution in pertinent part provides that:
“[I]n all suits or actions at law, * * * upon suggestion * * * [that a] party cannot have a fair and impartial trial * * * [the court] shall order and direct the record of proceedings * * * to be transmitted to some other сourt having jurisdiction * * * for trial.”
*283
The constitutional provision further provides that the General Assembly “shall make such modification of existing law as may be necessary to regulate and give force to this provision.” Code (1957), Art. 75, § 44, is the legislative action giving force to the constitutional provision and Rule 542 is the procedural regulation governing the right of removal. In substance, thе constitutional, statutory and regulatory provisions are the same. And see
Kisner v. State,
There is no longer any doubt that a proceeding under Article 31B of the Code relating to dеfective delinquents is civil in nature. See
Purks v. Director,
While the purpose of the constitutional provisions affording a right of removal is to assure “a fair and impartial trial” when it cannot be had in a cоurt in which an action at law is pending,
Baltimore v. Libowitz,
The principle of the Maryland cases—which, together with the constitutional and statutory provisions concerning the removal of causes, were extensively reviewed and discussed in Baltimore v. Libowitz, supra,—is that the term “suits or actions at law” are (as was said at p. 34 of 159 Md.) “[t]hose common law and statutory actions [which], in addition to tendering (a) an issue of fact (b) for trial by jury, have the further attributes (c) of beginning in a court of original сommon law jurisdiction, and (d) of being the ordinary proceedings between man and man by which redress is sought as a matter of right in cases of ordinary injuries to person and to property,” but dо not include (as was also said at p. 37) those actions “brought in a court of original jurisdiction by the State in the exercise of its sovereign power or function.” We think the latter clause would embrace a proceeding such as those brought to determine or redetermine the status of a person as a defective delinquent. Such a proceeding necessarily involves the power and function of the State to safeguard society against the anti-social behavior of a defective delinquent as well as to afford such person the means of terminating his confinement when it becomes apparent that it is reasonably safe to release him from further confinement.
Of course, as was said by Judge Macgill in his comprehensive opinion filed in the lower court, “[i]t is clear that the constitutional right of removal is to be liberally construed and cannot be restricted by legislative act (Barnes v. Meleski, [supra]), but it seеms equally clear that it cannot be enlarged by implication to include proceedings not mentioned nor contemplated at the time of its adoption (Baltimore v. Libowitz, supra).” And see the unsigned case note (to Heslop v. State) in 13 Md. L. Rev. 344 tracing the history of the right of removal in this State.
*285
Although the Legislature lacks authority to enact a law restricting or limiting the right of removal, it nevertheless has the power to extend the right by legislative enаctment,
Price v. Nesbitt,
Except for a clause stating that the Criminal Court of Baltimore should have jurisdiction of a person last sentenced by the Municipal Court of Baltimore City, the wording of § 6 (e), providing that:
“The court which last sentenced the defendant, whether or not the term of court in which he was sentenced has expired, shall retain jurisdiction of the defendant for the purpose of any of the procedures specified in §§ 6, 7, 8 or 9,”
was retained verbatim. The sections referred to concern the requests for an examination of a sentenced person for possible defective delinquency (§ 6), the implementation of such examination (§ 7), the hearing to determine whether a person, so stated to be by the three persons authorized to make the examination, is in fact a defective delinquent (§ 8), and the subsequent institutional confinement of such person depending on the outcome of the hearing (§ 9).
Afore significantly, the revision of § 10 (a), concerning the right of a defective delinquent (after the expiration of two years) to file a petition in “the law courts of the county or Baltimore City, as the case may be, either where such person wаs originally sentenced or which was the bona fide residence of such person when originally sentenced” for the purpose of having the defective delinquency of such pеrson redetermined, eliminated the clause which had formerly provided—
*286 “that if the law court * * * from which he was originally sentenced or in which he was a bona fide resident at the time of suсh sentence are one and the same, the petitioner shall have an absolute right to file his petition in the law court of any other county or in Baltimore City.”
The statute not only аffords no right of removal, but, on the contrary, clearly negates any inference that a removal was ever contemplated.
It is for these reasons that the argument of the petitioners-on appeal—to the effect that this Court should construe the constitutional provisions in such manner as would give the petitioners a right of removal-—cannot prevail.
The order must therefore be affirmed.
Order affirmed.
Notes
. When the appeals were filed in this Court, there was another appellant, but after the motion to dismiss had been argued, we were advised by Judge Sodaro (of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City) in a letter dated November 26, 1962, that Daniel Joseph *282 Riidiger, the other appellant, had been released from Patuxent Institution on a writ of habeas corpus.
. After the oral argument on the motion to dismiss, the parties were allowed additional time to file briefs or memoranda of law if either desired to do so. The petitioners filed a memorandum brief. The State, hаving fully argued the law in a memorandum filed with the motion to dismiss, deemed it unnecessary to reply.
. See, for instance,
Cooke v. Cooke,