This is аn original proceeding in which relator seeks an order in mandamus against respondent Judge, to set aside an order entered on February 14, 1983, dismissing relator’s action against the City of Berkeley and to reinstate said cause for a hearing on its merits. Respondent has stayed his order until this court rules on the petition for Mandamus. We granted a preliminary order to which respondent filed his return. The cause was then argued and submitted. We make our preliminary order absоlute.
The determinative facts are mutually admitted. On July 12, 1982, the City of Berkeley enacted an ordinance concerning voluntary demolition and moving of buildings in the municipality. The ordinance requires that “prior to the issuance of any demolition or removal permits a fee of $150 for permits and inspections shall be paid to the City of Berkeley.” Each applicant for a permit must also provide liability insurance and post a performance bond. The penal section of the ordinance provides that violators of the ordinance are subject to either fines up to $500 for each day of violation or 90 days imprisonment or both fine and imprisonment.
Relator’s action against the City of Berkeley pending before respondent judge sought a declaratory judgment and injunc-tive relief praying that the ordinance be denied enforcement and be declared void as violative of Article X, Sectiоn 22 of the *705 Missouri Constitution because the ordinance established a new fee or increased an existing fee without required approval of qualified voters. 1
The City of Berkeley filed its motion to dismiss relator’s petition for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief on the grounds that the City of St. Louis failed to state a cause of action and had no standing. The trial court sustained the motion to dismiss. We do not know the reasons underlying the trial court’s perfunctory dismissal. No findings of fact and conclusions of law were requested or made (Rule 73.01).
The threshold question is whether mandamus is available as a remedy under the circumstances of this case. Mandamus is one of the most powerful writs a court can issue.
Yeager v. Yeager,
Respondent’s view, apparently, is that it did not have jurisdiction over relator’s petition in the action below because relator either lacked standing оr failed to state a cause of action. The order of dismissal did not specify upon which of the grounds in the motion to dismiss the decision was predicated. Nor could the parties upon oral argument before us state with cеrtainty the basis for the trial court ruling. Relator’s arguments in its briefs have addressed both the issues of standing and sufficiency of its petition to state a cause of action. Respondent argues only that relator’s remedy is by appeal аnd not mandamus. He does not otherwise enlighten us with arguments for holding proper the order of dismissal based on grounds raised in the motion to dismiss. Standing is “a jurisdictional matter antecedent to the right of relief,”
State ex rel. Williams v. Marsh,
Article X, Section 23 of the Missouri Constitution provides in part: “Notwithstanding other provisions of this Constitution or other law, any taxpayer of the state, county or other political subdivision shall have standing to bring suit in a circuit court of proper venue ... to enforce the provisions of sections 16 through 22, inclusive, of this article .... ” The trial court may have read this section as limiting standing exclusively to taxpayers and reasoned that St. Louis City lacked standing because it is not a taxpayer in the City of Berkeley. That decision squarely raises the question of whether under Rule 87.02(a), relators are entitled to a declarаtory judgment determining whether defendant has violated the provisions of the Hancock Amendment by enacting an ordinance containing increased fees for voluntary demolition and moving permits without first submitting the proposed ordinance to popular vote. 2
*706 The foregoing rule is identical with Mo.Rev. Stat. § 527.020 (1978).
The ordinance enacted by defendant City of Berkeley directly affects the City of St. Louis in its performance of their responsibility for undertaking airport expansion. Notwithstanding that the City of St. Louis is not a taxpayer within the City of Berkeley, we hold, without reaching the merits of the ease of whether the ordinance is valid, the City of St. Louis has standing to challenge the ordinance. Persons whose rights arе or may be injuriously affected by the enforcement of an ordinance may attack its validity in proper proceedings.
Campbell Baking Co.
v.
City of Maryville,
Under Supreme Court Rule 52.01 a civil action must be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. The purpose of this rule has been held to enable those who are interested in the subject matter of the suit аnd entitled to the benefits of the litigation to be those who maintain the action. And so to warrant standing as a party the prospective plaintiff must have some actual and justiciable interest susceptible of protection through litigation. Janssen v. Guaranty Land Title Go.,571 S.W.2d 702 , 706[7, 8] (Mo.App.1978) .... Standing relates to the interest of an adversary in the subject of the suit so as to give that party the right to relief.
The United States Supreme Court’s two prong test for the judiciary’s prudential concept of standing rеquires the plaintiff to allege that the challenged action has caused him injury in fact and the interest he seeks to have protected is arguably within the zone of interest sought to be protected by the statute or constitutional guaranty in question.
Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp,
We recognize that the City of St. Louis, as a property owner in the municipal corporation of Berkeley has a vital interest in the taxes, licenses and fees leviеd upon it by Berkeley. The City of St. Louis illustrates one of many situations wherein par
*707
ties other than taxpayers have a substantial interest in the levy or proposed increases of “any tax, license or fee” thereby according them the right of standing to attack the allegedly unconstitutional ordinance. Residents of a municipality who merely rent, but are not property owners and hence, pay no personal or real estate taxes, would be еxcluded should Section 23, the provision on standing, be read as limiting standing to only taxpayers. So, too, would other tax-exempt persons, like the City of St. Louis, be foreclosed from our courts. We interpret Section 23 of Article X to confer standing, in addition to those persons ordinarily granted standing, upon tax-payers, and not as a limitation. To construe it otherwise contravenes well-established constitutional principles on standing discussed earlier. A construction of a state constitutional provision which will render it invalid under the federal constitution is not favored.
3
The effect of such a construction is to render the provision a nullity.
See City of Kirkwood v.
Allen,
Finally, our Missouri Court has given an expansive reading of legislative intendment with its use of the phrase “tax, license or fee” withjn Article X, Section 22 in
Roberts v. McNary,
For the reasons aforesaid, the trial court had jurisdiction of relator’s petition and its dismissal was improper. The trial court is ordered to reinstate said cause and proceed on the merits. Our preliminary order is made absolute.
Notes
. Mo. Const.Art. X, § 22(a) (1945) (аmended 1980) [the Hancock Amendment] provides:
Counties and other political subdivisions are hereby prohibited from levying any tax, license or fee, not authorized by law, charter or self enforcing provisions of the constitution when this аction is adopted or from increasing the current levy of an existing tax, license or fee, above that current levy authorized by law or charter when this section is adopted without the approval of the required majority of the qualified voters of that county or other political subdivision voting thereon.
. Rule 87.02(a) on who may obtain declaratory judgments provides as follows:
(a) Persons Interested Under Deeds— Wills — Contracts—Statutes and the like. Any person interеsted under a deed, will, written contract or other writings constituting a contract, or whose rights, status or other legal *706 relations are affected by a statute, municipal ordinance, contract or franchise, may have determinеd any question of construction or validity arising under the instrument, statute, ordinance, contract or franchise and obtain a declaration of rights, status or other legal relations thereunder.
. We are not called upon to reach the issue of the constitutionality of Article X, Section 23, which provides attorney fees and costs in taxpayer actions only, as distinguished from license and fee payers, when tested by due process and equal protection mandates under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.