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[Saints News] Litigation Against Business Code Dropped - Precedent Set?


borhoi

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 Litigation Against Business Code Dropped - Precedent Set?

 

By Haley Niamh Connor

 

   We'll start off by answering the question posed in the headline. No. The Stanton-Kerrigan complaint against the LS Business Code having been dismissed in court is in no way a signal by the court that this law is legal.


   Yesterday, Justice Isaac Rhodes granted the City's Motion to Dismiss Stanton-Kerrigan's complaint based simply on the grounds that the plaintiff has not been directly affected by the provisions addressed in the complaint.


   This is true. No business truly has yet, and there was a fatal flaw in Stanton-Kerrigan's complaint that led to this. They didn't point out the violation of section 36b of the City Charter that was used to enact the law. Section 36b of the Charter gives the Mayor's office limited legislative power, in the absence of a City Council, to enact legislation meant to face critical issues facing the city. This was not limited legislation, and the issue it addressed was not critical. Including this in the complaint would have called into question the entire Code and its validity. The dubious means by which the law was enacted should have been called into question, and hopefully, the next round of litigation will put this before the court.


   The blatant unconstitutionality of the Business Code, which can be found in plain text in sections 501 and 502 was called into question in Stanton-Kerrigan's complaint. It remains unclear at this time why this portion of the complaint was ignored. Regardless of whether this law has affected businesses yet, this portion of the Code is unconstitutional. Because of that, 501 and 502 should have been struck down at least.


   Luckily, as stated at the beginning of this piece, this by no means marks the end of the fight against the Business Code. It's simply a matter of time before the unconstitutional searches this law gives the Department of Finance free reign to conduct are conducted. Once this happens, it's simply on the owner of a business whose constitutional rights have been violated to bring their situation to court.


   How this plays out will set a precedent for the power of the Mayor's office, and it will play out. This case and its dismissal do not set that precedent. The Motion to Dismiss by the city was granted not due to any form of invalidity of Stanton-Kerrigan's complaint, but because of a simple technicality. As stated in the preceding pieces, Saints News will continue to cover this situation closely.

 

The opinions expressed in this piece do not reflect the opinions of Saints News as a whole, but those of its author Haley Niamh Connor.

 

This article contains sponsored multimedia advertisements. This has not affected the content of this article.

 

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Edited by borhoi
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