Official Atlasia Supreme Court Release
Nyman, DC
Notice of Dismissal
After consideration of the petitioner's arguments, the Supreme Court of Atlasia has
declined to grant certiorari to hear the question of whether the
Atlasian National Healthcare Act violates the Constitution of Atlasia.
In a laudably detailed petition, Gov. Keaton argues that the
ANHCA primarily violates the Constitution by virtue of an alleged infringement on what the petitioner claims is a constitutional guarantee in Art. 1 §5, cl. 3, to a
Petitioner claims that the "right to a free and undistorted market is clear in this clause", and that, since Section V of the Constitution enumerates the power of the Senate, it implies equal and compelling responsibilities - that each power granted to the Senate also creates a similar mandate for all laws passed by the Senate to fulfil, in this case, a right to a "free and undistorted market".
The Court is unconvinced. The argument that the powers explicitly granted to the Senate act as a constraining force in anything in other than the obvious sense - that an act of the Senate not clearly justified under the thirty-one powers granted to the body is in violation of the constitution by default - has little support in either a fair reading of the text or, indeed in Atlasian legal precedent.
The Court does not believe that the
power to act in order to guarantee a single, undistorted market has any bearing on legitimate uses of the Senate's power under the other thirty-one clauses. To quote relevant precedent from perhaps one of our most distinguished predecessors, Chief Justice Sam Spade, (in what the Senior Associate Justice, on a point of personal privilege, considers one of the most finely crafted legal decisions issued by an Atlasian Court in its history) - the landmark
Junkie v. Atlasia (2010);
However, as the Court shall stress today, these powers are “affirmative” grants of lawmaking ability. Except where limited within the actual grant of power itself, each affirmative power given to the Senate does not limit the other affirmative powers of the Senate. They exist separately, in and of themselves. And even where separate powers duplicate each other, each affirmative grant of power to the Senate is not limited by this overlap. Rather, each provision supplements the other respective power.
[...]
As for the impact of A1, S5, C4 upon our holding, the Court finds it irrelevant to our conclusion. While we certainly acknowledge that a valid justification for the Senate’s passage of laws could be found by promotion of “a single market where competition is free and undistorted”, as noted above in Part I, there is no requirement that the Senate must promote “a single market where competition is free and undistorted” when it appropriately legislates under its other powers derived from the Constitution.
We find that there is little basis for a plausible constitutional challenge to the
ANHCA on these grounds.
This is, of course, simply a notice of dismissal, not a judgement issued after a lengthy debate and arguments from both sides of a case, so we will only briefly note that there
are plausibly grounds for a challenge to the
ANHCA based solely on Art. 1, §6, cl. 3's insistence that
- particularly given the lack of legal precedent on this point. However, the Court notes that the
ANHCA has recently been superseded by the
Reforming Atlasian Public Health Act of 2014 , which may render the issue moot given the changes in the structure of the healthcare system under this bill. If petitioner wishes to file suit against the new law, that is, of course, his right. The Court thanks the petitioner for his time and his clear effort apparent in his filing.
The Court also wishes to make it exceedingly clear that this dismissal should not be construed as a blanket constitutional endorsement of the
ANHCA or any other acts of the Senate past or present, or, indeed the merits of universal health coverage in this or similar forms. It is only a response to the specific case presented.
The case is dismissed.
