“[N]either the wisdom nor the desirability of that legislation is subject to review by this court.”
How later courts described this case
- “[N]either the wisdom nor the desirability of that legislation is subject to review by this court.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE STEIGMANN, specially concurring:
I agree with both the reasoning and the result reached in the majority opinion in this case, but I write separately because of the concerns expressed by my distinguished colleague in dissent. I share many of those concerns, particularly about the inconsistencies in the Franchise Act and the problems it creates in a free-market society. Nonetheless, despite concerns about the wisdom of the Franchise Act, which the dissent expresses well, neither the wisdom nor the desirability of that legislation is subject to review by this court. “Our role in evaluating the [statute] at issue here is necessarily limited, for we are not called upon to determine whether the legislature has chosen the best or most effective means of resolving the problems addressed in this legislation.” People v. Lantz, 186 Ill. 2d 243, 254 , 712 N.E.2d 314, 319 (1999); see also Serio v. Hevesi, 9 Misc. 3d 835, 836 , 804 N.Y.S.2d 571 , 574 (N.Y. Sup. 2005) (“[T]he role of the judiciary is limited to enforcing statutes and ruling on challenges to their constitutionality [citation]. The judiciary does not sit as a superlegislature empowered to weigh the wisdom, reasonableness[,] or desirability of legislation”); Mayor of City of Lansing v. Michigan Public Service Comm’n, 470 Mich. 154, 161 , 680 N.W.2d 840, 844 (2004) (the task of the judiciary is the important yet limited one of reading into and interpreting what the legislature has made the law. “[The] [legislature is free to make policy choices that, especially in controversial matters, some observers will inevitably think unwise. This dispute over the wisdom of a law, however, cannot give warrant to a court to overrule the people’s [legislature”).