Courts and the NRA

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Your adequate article in today's CRIMSON on the Minn. Moratorium Case touches upon a point which warrants further discussion. For the decision in this case again opens the question as to what branch of the government is to determine when an emergency ceases to exist. In Chastleton Corp. v. Sinclair (264 U.S. 543, 1924), the Court said that it is "open to the Courts to inquire whether the exigency still existed upon which continued operation of the law depended." The question now arises as to what court is to enter into the FACTS of the case. In the Chastleton Case the Supreme Court said that it "may ascertain as it sees fit any fact that is merely a ground for laying down a rule of law," but that "this can be done more conveniently" in the lower court.

Continuing our inquiry, it is natural to ask what influence the legislature is to have in determining the existence of an emergency. In the well-known case of Block v. Hirsh (256 U.S., 135, 1921), the Court said that "a declaration of a legislature concerning public conditions that of necessity and duty it must know is entitled at least to great respect." But this statement furnishes us with no very definite rule for weighing the importance of the opinion of the legislature. It should be added, however, that the Court has refused to sustain a law on the ground that the emergency which made it constitutional had ceased to exist. (See Wolff v. Court of Ind. Relations, 262 U.S., 522 et alia).

There is one factor, however, in these "emergency-law" cases which may cause difficulty. How many times a session will the Court be called upon to enter upon the question of the existence of the emergency? How much weight will the Courts give to the legislative flat which declares the existence of the emergency? Will our lower courts be swamped with cases at every slight upturn in business by litigants claiming that the national (or state or local) emergency has ceased to exist? The most likely answer is that the Courts will place more and more reliance upon the opinion of the legislatures in this matter. The dangerous consequences of this tendency are too obvious to bear description. Victor H. Kramer '35.