Commission (law)

“ If it should be supposed, that the solemnity of affixing the seal is necessary, not only to the validity of the commission, but even to the completion of an appointment; still, when the seal is affixed, the appointment is made, and the commission is valid. No other solemnity is required by law; no other act is to be performed on the part of government. All, that the executive can do to invest the person with his office, is done; and unless the appointment be then made, the executive cannot make one without the co-operation of others. ”

“ The general assembly, at its first session under this constitution, shall constitute a commission, to consist of three persons not members of the senate or house of representatives, whose duty it shall be to revise, reform, simplify, and abridge the rules of practice, pleading, and proceeding in the courts of record of this State, abolishing the forms of action known to the common law, and distinctions as to form between proceedings at law and in equity. ”

“ Many of the States have revised their public acts with great and manifest benefit, and I recommend that provision be made by law for the appointment of a commission to revise the public statutes of the United States, arranging them in order, supplying deficiencies, correcting incongruities, simplifying their language, and reporting them to Congress for its action. ”

“ To repeat, we are concerned with the question of the delegation of legislative power. If the citizen is to be punished for the crime of violating a legislative order of an executive officer, or of a board or commission, due process of law requires that it shall appear that the order is within the authority of the officer, board, or commission, and, if that authority depends on determinations of fact, those determinations must be shown. ”

“ No person while employed by, or holding any office in relation to, any transportation or transmission company, or while in any wise financially interested therein, or while engaged in practicing law, shall hold office as a member of said commission, or perform any of the duties thereof. At least one of the commissioners shall have the qualifications prescribed for judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and any commissioner may be impeached or removed in the manner provided for the impeachment or removal of a judge of said court. ”

“ Any corporation failing or refusing to obey any valid order or requirement of the commission, within such reasonable time, not less than ten days, as shall be fixed in the order, may be fined by the commission (proceeding by due process of law as aforesaid) such sum, not exceeding five hundred dollars, as the commission may deem proper, or such sum in excess of five hundred dollars, as may be prescribed, or authorized, by law ”

“ It is a commonplace of administrative law that the evaluation to be given criterial findings, if adequately supported, is left essentially to the administrative agency charged with primary responsibility for interpreting the will of Congress. The extent to which this is so will be misconceived if drawn from abstract conceptions of 'fact,' 'law,' or 'law-application.' For one thing, the permissible scope of administrative discretion may vary from section to section within a single statute. ”

“ It applies the test of fitness to applicants for these places by means of a competitive examination, and gives large discretion to the Commissioners as to the character of the examination and many other matters connected with its execution. Thus the rules and regulations adopted by the Commission have much to do with the practical usefulness of the statute and with the results of its application.
The people may well trust the Commission to execute the law with perfect fairness and with as little irritation as is possible. ”

“ Matters of greater importance are dealt with together with the Secretariat of State.
Art. 7
1. The President of the Commission can issue Ordinances, putting into effect legislative and regulatory norms.
2. In cases of urgent necessity, he can issue dispositions having the force of law, which however lose their force if they are not confirmed by the Commission within ninety days.
3. The power to issue general Regulations remains reserved to the Commission.
Art. 8
1. Without prejudice to what is established in articles 1 and 2, the President of the Commission represents the State. ”

“ The Commission is itself perhaps a sufficient court in respect to questions of fact, and if it were arranged that in case of dispute on a question of law the Commission might call upon the Supreme Court for an immediate interpretation of the law, the rulings of the Commission could be squared with the law at the start, and the danger of loss from an erroneous order would be reduced to a minimum. ”

“ By the commission of oyer and terminer the commissioners (in practice the judges of assize, though other persons are named with them in the commission) are commanded to make diligent inquiry into all treasons, felonies and misdemeanours whatever committed in the counties specified in the commission, and to hear and determine the same according to law. ”

“ Further than this, the payment of salaries is made dependent upon the certificate of the commission that the appointments of the recipients were made in accordance with the civil service law and rules. Thus these commissions have absolute power to prevent irregular or illegal appointments by refractory appointing officers. Their powers being so much greater than those of the national commission, their action can be much more drastic in most cases, and they can go more directly to the heart of an existing abuse, and apply more quickly and effectually the needed remedy. ”

“ These compiled laws were prepared by a commission authorized to make 'a careful and accurate compilation of all of the laws, general local, and private, which shall be in force on the fifth day of May, 1884'; and the commissioners were careful, as they say in the preface to their work, to avoid 'making changes in any original law.' The compilation of general laws embraced the Revision of 1865 and the session laws thereafter. ”

“ The Commission's responsibility at all times is to measure applications by the standard of 'public convenience, interest, or necessity.' The Commission originally found respondent's application inconsistent with the public interest because of an erroneous view regarding the law of Pennsylvania. The Court of Appeals laid bare that error, and, in compelling obedience to its correction, exhausted the only power which Congress gave it. ”

“ This power is, as stated, discretionary; there are of course cases where the Chancellor might properly conclude that parties should be remitted to an action at law. But this is not one of those cases. ”

“ And it seems strange that the administration of such a commission should be doubted, when the parliament has the nomination of the managers; when the managers are to be accountable to the parliament; when the trust is to be so small, for more notes cannot be coin’d so long as 25000 lib. is in the office; a committee of parliament is to be appointed to inspect the management, the books are to be open to the inspection of any member of parliament, and the state of the commission is to be published in print. ”

“ Wherefore (I say) the Commissioners receiving Special Orders, for doing most righteous and equitable things, contrary to no known Law, and agreeable to former frequent practices, in lesse just and vaster matters, and withall consonant to their general Commission; and all this at a time when no other way was practiceable, the same for that reason being alwaies used, afterwards in future cases. The Commissioners (I say) upon these grounds had no reason to do otherwise then they did concerning me: Now to come nearer the point. ”

“ To maintain peace with the Indian, let the frontier settler treat him with humanity, and railroad directors see to it that he is not shot down by employees in wanton cruelty. In short, if settlers and railroad men will treat Indians as they would treat whites under similar circumstances, we apprehend but little trouble will exist. They must acquaint themselves with the treaty obligations of the government, and respect them as the highest law of the land. Instead of regarding the Indian as an enemy, let them regard him as a friend, and they will almost surely receive his friendship and esteem. ”

“ Let us go to our best cities, where churches and schoolhouses adorn every square; yet unfortunately we must keep a policeman at every corner, and scarcely a night passes but, in spite of refinement, religion, and law, crime is committed. How often, too, it is found impossible to discover the criminal. ”

“ A print taken by a law-enforcement agency is known as an “inked print,” and is carefully taken so that all the characteristics of the print are reproduced on the fingerprint card; a print which is left accidentally, such as a print left at the scene of a crime, is known as a latent print. To make an identification of a latent print, the expert compares the points in the latent print with the points in an inked print. If a point appearing in a latent print does not appear in the inked print, or vice versa, the expert concludes that the two prints were not made by the same finger or palm. ”

“ King James the First, upon his Accession to the Throne of England, 1603-4, and in subsequent Periods of his Reign, recommended also to Parliament a Reform of all the Statute Law, and of the Penal Laws in particular. ”

“ Congress may from time to time establish courts and other institutions of government suited to the condition of the people. At first it may be a strong military government; let it be so if thought proper, and left offenders be tried by military law until civil courts would answer a better purpose. Let farmers and mechanics, millers and engineers be employed and sent among them for purposes of instruction ”

“ Ruby. Yes.
Mr. Herndon. All right; I’ll give you an opportunity now to explain that to me. This is for my purposes of the examination.
Mr. Ruby. Well, in running a—in my business, when you get somebody with a—it’s a very exciting business. One particular night a man pulled a knife on me and I took a pistol and hit him on the head in that altercation, and sometimes you get fellows with real bad rough reputations. They’re real toughs. There’s no question about it, and being in my type of business for a livelihood, the only way you can—of course, I do call the law enforcement officers. ”

“ It is vouched throughout by reference to original Petitions and Rolls of Parliament, from 4 Edward III. the earliest known to the Writer to exist, to 27 Hen. VI. In this Treatise, the Form and Validity of Ordinances, as distinguished from Statutes, are stated much at length; and amongst other Things it is asserted that an Ordinance cannot make New or Permanent Law, nor repeal any Statute, but that temporary Provisions, consistent with the Law in force, may be made by way of Ordinance; and that an Ordinance may be repealed by a subsequent Ordinance without Statute. See Rot. Parl. ”

“ Pulton’s Plan
The earliest Instance of the Exertions of any Individual, without the Sanction of Parliamentary Authority, towards making a Collection of Statutes from authentic Sources, appears to have been afforded by Pulton.—He was a learned Barrister, of great Age and Experience, and was employed for several Years in the Consideration of the Statute Law. He published two useful Books upon that Subject: first, an Abridgement of the Penal Statutes;Catalogue A. No. 38, 44, 45. and afterwards a Calendar or Abstract of all the Statutes in use, chronologically arranged ”

“ One Judge, &c. and Three Counsel forming a Committee, to each of which it was proposed that a Title or Division of the Statute Law should be referred.
The Subject was afterwards taken into Consideration, so far as related to the Penal Laws, at subsequent Periods in the Reign of the same Queen, viz. Anno 27, A.D.1585. [2] —Anno 35, A.D. 1593. [3] —Anno 39 & 40, A.D. 1597. [4] —Anno 43, A.D. 1601. [5] —In the Proceedings in 1593 and 1597 Sir Francis BaconJac. I. Sir F. Bacon. took Part, and upon them he appears to have founded his Sketch, or Plan of a General Revisal of the Statute Law. ”

“ It is of no importance that the person commissioned must give a bond and take an oath, before he possesses the office under the commission; nor that it is the duty of the Postmaster General to transmit the commission to the officer when he shall have done so. ”

“ The Congress may not delegate its purely legislative power to a commission, but, having laid down the general rules of action under which a commission shall proceed, it may require of that commission the application of such rules to particular situations and the investigation of facts, with a view to making orders in a particular matter within the rules laid down by the Congress. ”

“ A commission for the administration of executive business, like the Civil Service Commission, is a very different thing from a committee endowed with discretion to pass upon the interests of free and equal citizens, not being itself either executive, legislative, or judicial. Such a body will inevitably become the engine of either one interest or another against the rest, or sink into nonentity. Such a commission lacks all the guarantees of justice and of correct civil action which we have established around our legislative, judicial, and executive institutions. ”

“ For the proper supervision and enforcement of its functions, the Commission shall, if it finds that any person has been appointed to or is holding any position, whether by original appointment, promotion, assignment, transfer, or reinstatement, in violation of the Civil Service Act or of the rules promulgated in accordance therewith, or in violation of any executive order or any regulations of the Commission, or that any employee subject to such Act. ”