141 Ga. 469 | Ga. | 1914
(After stating the foregoing facts.) By the Civil Code (1910), § 6579 (constitution, article 8, section 4, paragraph 1), it is provided that authority may be granted to counties,, militia districts, school districts, and municipal corporations, upon' recommendation of the corporate authorities, to establish and maintain public schools in their respective limits by' local taxation; “but no such laws shall take effect until the same shall have been submitted to a vote of the qualified voters in each county, militia district, school district, or municipal corporation, and approved by a two-thirds majority of persons voting at such election, and the General Assembly may prescribe who shall vote on such questions.”
. Eelianee is placed on the first part of Civil Code (1910) § 844, which reads as follows: "All local laws and general laws having local application, in force within territory included ■ within the limits of a new county, are to be in full force and effect within such territory,” etc. If the section stopped at this point, and were construed as providing that the officers of a new county might levy and collect a local school tax therein without an election, because its territory had been taken from another county in which an election had been held for the purpose of authorizing a tax, it would clearly violate the constitutional requirements above mentioned, and, as applied to such taxation, would be void. The section mentioned does not, however, end with the quotation above made, but contains also these words: "provided, that where by the general laws provision is made for any of said laws going into effect in any county by an election to be held, that an election may be held in the new county at any time after its creation, for the purpose of putting the local laws into effect,- notwithstanding the provision of any general law requiring the lapse of any specified time after the last election on the subject.” Here provision is made in regard to an election to be held in the new county after its creation, for the purpose of pritting the law into effect. The closing words of the section, beginning with "notwithstanding,” have reference to the fact that, after an election has been had on certain subjects, another election is not permitted until a specified time has elapsed. Any such provision was not to affect the right to hold an election in a new county at any time after its creation, in-order to put into effect the local law or general law with a local application. The general rule is, that if a statute is equally susceptible of two constructions, one of which will make it valid, and the other of which will make ft unconstitutional, the former is to be preferred. While the language of the section quoted is not entirely clear, it should be harmonized with the fundamental law, rather than be construed to be in antagonism therewith. It is as capable of the former construction- as of the latter; and the former will be adopted.
The constitutional amendment hy which Wheeler County was created (Acts 1912, p. 41) contained the following: "Provided, that the laws applicable to the organization of new counties, as
The officials of Wheeler County had no authority to levy- and collect a local county tax for school purposes, without a submission of the question to the voters of that county. It was accordingly hot error to refuse the mandamus prayed, and to dismiss the petition on demurrer. Judgment affirmed.