128 Ga. 55 | Ga. | 1907
(After stating the facts.) The constitution declares: “No law, or section of the Code, shall be amended or repealed by mere reference to its title, or to the number of the section of the Code, but the amending or repealing act shall distinctly describe the law to be amended or repealed, as well as the alteration to be made.” Civil Code, §5779. It has been held, in numerous cases, that it was not necessary, under this provision of the constitution, that the act to be amended or repealed should be copied in its entirety in the amending or repealing act; in other words, that the constitution called for a description, and not a transcription, and that any reasonable description of the act to be amended or repealed would be a compliance with this provision of the constitution. See Newman v. State, 101 Ga. 538, and cases cited; Puckett v. Young, 112 Ga. 578, and cases cited; Gilbert v. Ga. R. Co., 104 Ga. 412, and cases cited. In many of the cases above referred to there was in the amending or repealing act something more than a mere reference to the title of the act or section of the code. This matter of description sometimes appears in the title, sometimes in the act, and sometimes in both. In Adam v. Wright, 84 Ga. 720, the-repealing act contained no other description of the act to be repealed than the title and the date of approval. This was held to be a compliance with the constitutional requirement. In Georgia Southern & Fla. R. Co. v. George, 92 Ga. 760, the amending act contained no other description of the act to be amended than a recitation of its title, the date of its approval, and a recital of how the act would read when amended in the manner indicated in the act. In the opinion Mr. Justice Lump-kin said: “No other act ever passed by the General Assembly of this State had in it a section in the language of the fifth section of the act of 1889, and therefore, when this section is fully transcribed in the amending act, the act to be amended is identified beyond any possibility .of doubt. •■It is true that the ‘description’ does not precede, but follows, that portion of the act of 1892 which declares what the amendment shall be. The order of arrangement, however, is immaterial. The act of 1892 must be considered as a whole, and when this is done, it will appear that the act of 1889