113 A. 385 | Conn. | 1921
The charter of the city of Meriden empowers the court of common council to make and enforce *192 ordinances to keep open and safe for public use and travel, and free from encroachment or obstruction, the streets, highways, public grounds, and public places in the city; to prohibit or regulate shows, parades, rendezvous, and assemblies in streets and public places; to keep the streets and all public places quiet from undue noise, and to impose fines not exceeding $100 for violation of such ordinances. In the exercise of these powers the common council enacted the following ordinance: —
"Resolved — that no person or persons shall use the streets, sidewalk, parks or public squares for the purposes of delivering orations, or making speeches, or any other public demonstrations, without first obtaining a permit from the chief of police. Any person or corporation violating. . . . this ordinance shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $100."
The question raised by the defendant's appeal from the ruling of the court overruling the demurrer to the information, and from the sentence and judgment of the court, is whether this ordinance is violative of the Constitution of the State of Connecticut and of the United States.
Our Constitution is a grant and not a limitation of power. Bridgeport Public Library Reading Room
v. Burroughs Home,
The appellant's contention is that the Meriden ordinance is violative of §§ 1 and 5 of our Bill of Rights, which guarantee equality in rights and freedom of speech, and also of the
It does not appear whether the appellant has been deprived of the right of free speech or not. He has been fined for making a speech in a public park without a permit, but it does not follow that his speech was delivered at such a time or place that he had a constitutional right to deliver it. The ordinance purports to regulate the use of streets and parks, and it does not absolutely forbid, but by implication recognizes, some qualified right, or at least some qualified privilege, of public speaking at some time and under some restrictions in the streets and parks of Meriden. Such an ordinance is not necessarily violative of § 5 of the Bill of Rights; and, if it is, it can only be so because it attempts to confer on the chief of police the right to arbitrarily determine in advance who may exercise that qualified privilege, or what subjects may be publicly discussed, or what sentiments publicly expressed, on the streets and in the parks of Meriden.
This latter objection is based on § 1 of the Bill of Rights. If the qualified right or privilege of public *194
speaking which the ordinance recognizes is one which all citizens have an equal right to exercise, and if the true construction and effect of the ordinance be such as to confer on the chief of police a personal and arbitrary power to determine who may and who may not exercise it, then the ordinance is void, and its prohibition cannot be lawfully enforced by fine. State v.Conlon,
We take these two questions in order. The public right in streets and parks is paramount, and it is therefore admitted that in the exercise of its delegated authority the city of Meriden may make reasonable ordinances to keep the streets and parks open and safe for public travel and free from encroachment or obstruction. Whether it might have unqualified forbidden the delivery of any oration or the making of any speech in such places we need not inquire, for it has not attempted to do so. A qualified right or privilege of public speaking, after obtaining a permit, is recognized, and the particular question is whether that residuum of right or privilege is of such a character that all citizens have a constitutional right to enjoy it upon equal terms. Section 5 of the Bill of Rights answers that question by declaring that "every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty." It is assumed by the ordinance that some citizens will be permitted by the chief of police to use the streets and parks of Meriden for the purpose of exercising their constitutional right. That being so, it is certain that the chief of police may not, by any arbitrary process of selection, determine in advance who may and who may not exercise it. If the permit is to be granted in some instances and withheld in *195 others, it must be in accordance with some uniform rule which is not expressed in the ordinance.
Turning, now, to the construction of the ordinance, to see whether such a uniform rule can be read into it, we find the ordinance hopelessly indefinite. It does not even expressly confer on the chief of police the power to issue permits. It simply assumes that he has the power to grant or refuse them. No rule is laid down to guide or restrain that power, or to inform applicants on what terms a permit will be granted.
In People ex rel Lieberman v. Vandecarr,
But in determining whether it violates the Constitution of Connecticut, we must be guided by our own public policy and our own precedents. So guided, we can reach but one conclusion. In the first place, the presumption that a public officer will discharge his duties according to law assumes that the law tells him what his duties are. This ordinance does not do so. It must be supposed that a subordinate officer desirous of obeying the law will look to his written instructions for guidance, and, if the limitations on his authority are indefinite, that he will consider not only what is said, but, when the omission is significant, what is not said. There can be no reasonable presumption that an unlimited discretion will not be exercised when *196 the ordinance itself reposes an unlimited discretion.
As the Massachusetts court has said, in holding a similar grant of discretion unconstitutional: "Doubtless it is to be expected that a subordinate officer entrusted with unlimited power will use it wisely and with a view only to the public good; but, as in Winthrop
v. New England Chocolate Co.,
Even in the absence of Connecticut precedent, we should be unwilling to leave the constitutional liberties of a citizen to be defined and protected by the good impulses of a subordinate official entrusted with unlimited discretion; if for no other reason than that the exercise of discretion cannot be controlled by mandamus.American Casualty Ins. Co. v. Fyler,
But the question is no longer an open one in this State. In State v. Conlon,
The overwhelming weight of authorities in the State courts is that statutes and ordinances which purport to give to administrative officials an absolute and uncontrolled discretion to grant or refuse permission to do something which all citizens similarly situated have an equal right to do are unconstitutional. The following cases so hold: State v. Porter,
The ordinance in question is violative of §§ 1 and 5 of the Bill of Rights, and is void.
There is error, the judgment is set aside and the cause remanded with direction to the Court of Common Pleas in New Haven County to sustain the demurrer to the information and to enter judgment for the defendant.
In this opinion the other judges concurred, except GAGER and BURPEE, Js., who dissented.