The Attorney-General has exhibited to this court an information in the nature of a quo warranto, charging that, under the provisions of an act of the General Assembly approved March 28, 1921, entitled, “An Act Creating a Municipal Corporation Court in Certain Counties,” etc. (Laws 1921, p. 226), the Governor appointed the respondent judge of said court in Buchanan County; that said respondent has duly qualified and is exercising the powers and duties of said office; that said apt contravenes Section 1 of Article VI of the Constitution of Missouri; that respondent is unlawfully holding said office of judge of'said municipal, court, for the reason that said act is violative of the Constitution and is null and void. The respondent waived the issue of the writ, entered his appearance, and, agreeing that the petition may be treated as a writ of quo warranto, demurred thereto (1) as not stating facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and (2) that under the allegations the respondent is lawfully holding the office of judge of said court.
*306 The act creates a municipal corporation court in all counties in this State having a population of 90,000 and not over 150,000, and. in which is located a city of not less than 75,000 inhabitants (which provisions spell Buchanan County only), said court to be a court of rеcord with jurisdiction coextensive with the county in which it is located “in all actions at law or equity concurrent with justices of the peace and with the circuit court wherein the amount involved does not exceed the sum of one thousand dollars аnd the same jurisdiction of criminal cases as now given to justices of the peace and shall, within the limits thus given, exercise all the duties and powers now given by law to circuit courts and subject to such exceptions as herein enacted; the prаctice of law and procedure in said court shall be governed by the code of civil procedure as now in force as applied to the circuit court.” The court is to be in continuous session and shall not have terms, but process shall be returnable in ten days and not more than thirty days, and cases shall be tried on the return day, or as soon thereafter as the court can hear them. The circuit clerk is clerk of the court and shall furnish a deputy clerk; appeals he directly аs from judgments of the circuit court. Cases may be removed from justices of the peace by either party to said court at any time before trial is commenced. Section 10 reads: “Nothing in this act shall be held to apply to or affect the conduct and business of city, police or municipal courts in this State.” The foregoing synopsis is sufficient for the consideration of this case. If the court created by the act had been called a court of common pleas, it would not have been a misnomer.
Section 1, Article V, of the Constitution of 1820, reads: “The judicial power as to matters of law and equity shall be vested in a ‘ Supreme Court, ’ in a ‘ Chancellor, ’ in ‘ Circuit Courts, ’ and in such inferior tribunals as the General Assembly may, from time to time, ordain and establish.”
*307 Section 1, Article VI, of the Constitution of 1865, reads: “The judicial power, as to matters of law and equity, shall be vested in a supreme court, in district courts, in circuit courts, and in such'inferior tribunals as the G-eneral Assembly may, from time to time, establish. ’ ’
Section 1, Article VI, of thе Constitution of 1875, reads: “The judicial power of the State, as to matters of law and equity, except as in this Constitution otherwise provided, shall be vested in a Supreme Court, the St. Louis Court of Appeals, circuit courts, criminal courts, probate courts, county courts and municipal corporation courts.”
Under the Constitutions of 1820 and 1865, the judicial power of the State was not vested exclusively in the courts designated in the sections cited supra. In addition to those named, the General Assembly was еmpowered to ordain .and establish other inferior courts. Accordingly, it created courts of inferior jurisdiction,such as courts of common pleas, recorder’s courts, and doubtless other courts in many of the counties of the State. But the Legislаture was shorn of this power by the Constitution of 1875, which provided a complete system of judicial tribunals for the State and vested in them all the judicial power of the State. The Constitution disposed of all the judicial power of the State in matters of law and equity and left nothing to be disposed of by the General Assembly. [State ex rel. v. Woodson, 161 Mo. l. c. 454; State ex rel. v. Locker,
It is unreasonable to assume that the framers of the Constitution, when providing for the creation of municipal corporation courts, сontemplated courts of common law, equity and criminal jurisdiction for school districts, drainage districts, road districts and townships. That is the meaning of respondent’s contention. In Miller v. People,
“The General Assembly in proposing and the peoplе in adopting the amendment of 1904 are presumed to have used the words 'municipal courts’ in their natural and ordinary meaning. [Hills v. City of Chicago,60 Ill. 86 ; City of Beardstown v. City of Virginia, 76 id. 34; 8 Cyc. 729; Cooley’s Const. Lim. 58.] The words ‘municipal’ is defined by all authorities as meaning of or pertaining to a city or corporation having the right to administer local government. The municipal court of the city of Chicag’o is therefore one which pertains to the *309 corporate or local government of tire city and the administration of the law within the city. We held in City of Chicago v. Reeves, supra, that municipal courts are a proper part of the local government, and such courts are generally given exclusive jurisdiction for violations of municipal ordinances. . . . Under the rule that the words ‘municipal courts’ were used in the amendment in their ordinary and natural meaning, the municipal court of Chicago is to be regarded as a local court of the city, established for the purpose of administering the law within the city, and not as a part of the judicial department of the government of the State at large. ’ ’
Speaking of the recorder’s court of the city of Hannibal, Black, J., in Cake v. White,
“The recorder’s court was not abolished by the Constitution of 1875, for Section 1 of Article 6, in express terms, provides for the continued existence of municipal corporation courts, and hence the recorder’s court did not cease to exist, by force of Section 42, of the same article.”
Respondent rеlies with confidence on State ex rel. v. McArthur,
“It seems to me, on recurring to the case last cited, that Mr. Justice PaiNe might have saved himself some labor by regarding the municipal court in the city and county of Milwaukee as one of those authorized by the constitution under the denomination of “inferior courts in the several counties,’ ”
*310 The Constitution having disposed of all the judicial power of the State and provided a system of tribunals for the administration of the law of the State, and having withdrawn from the General Assembly the power to create other inferior courts, and having thus covered the whole field, it is manifest that the authority to establish municipal сorporation courts has reference solely to municipal courts as that term is universally understood, otherwise there would he no authority for the creation of courts to administer the affairs and enforce the ordinances of municiрalities, from which sphere the court in question is expressly excluded by the act cheating it.
It is not and cannot be claimed that the jurisdiction of our circuit courts may not be altered, abridged or enlarged. [Sec. 22, Art. VI, Constitution.] But the fact remains that it is not within thе competence of the General Assembly to create other courts than those specified in our organic law, nor enlarge or diminish their jurisdiction when that is defined by the Constitution. [State ex rel. v. Locker, supra.]
We do not question that courts оf the character contemplated by the act would have a salutary influence and purge the administration of justice in the larger cities of our State of. many crying evils. That has been demonstrated in other jurisdictions, and is no longer an untried exрeriment. An amendment to the Constitution was adopted in Illinois, authorizing the creation of the Municipal Court of the City of Chicago, which, no doubt, has in a large measure fulfilled the expectations of its promoters. That court, however, as has been seen, is a municipal .court, having no jurisdiction outside of the city. [Miller v. People, supra.]
There is no analogy between this case and State ex rel. v Seehorn,
A statute fairly susceptible of a construction in harmony with the Constitutiоn must be given that construction by the courts. Unless clearly repugnant to the organic law, it must be upheld. [State ex rel. v. Burton,
It is so ordered.