Request By:
Mr. John T. Robertson
Christian County Clerk
Courthouse - 511 S. Main Street
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 42240
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
OAG 82-453, written to you, contains this language (1st paragraph on page 3):
"Thus the county judge executive is reponsible for taking the application for a license and then issuing a license, if the applicant qualifies, by way of an executive order. He is responsible for taking the bond and approving the surety. Then he is required to file the original executive order and bond with you, as clerk. The fee for the marriage license, bond, certificate and recording is $14.00. See KRS 64.012, as amended in the 1982 session (Ch. 161, § 1).
The paragraph was intended to constitute a part of the response to your question as to the correct procedure for licensing ministers or clergymen to solemnize marriages in Kentucky.
Thus the statement in the above paragraph of OAG 82-453 that "The fee for the marriage license, bond, certificate and recording is $14.00", is in reality a non sequitur; and it did not relate to the licenses obtained by clergymen to perform marriages under KRS 402.060.
Only the county judge executive in the appropriate county issues a license to clergymen to solemnize marriages. As we pointed out in that opinion, KRS 402.060 does require a formal document, i.e., a license by way of a written document. Finally, as we said in that opinion, such licenses to ministers should be issued by way of the county judge executive's order book, containing the data explained in the opinion, the original of which, along with the minister's executed bond, must be kept on record in the county clerk's office. See KRS 67.710 for various chief executive functions of county judge executive. See also
Ladd v. Commonwealth, 313 Ky. 754, 233 S.W.2d 517 (1950). The county clerk's fee for recording the minister's bond is five dollars ($5.00). The clerk's fee for recording the license issued to clergymen is an additional five dollars ($5.00). See KRS 64.012.
Thus the statement in OAG 82-453, that "The fee for the marriage license, bond, certificate and recording is $14.00", relates solely to the marriage license issued by the county clerk, including the taking of bond where deemed necessary under KRS 402.210, 402.100, and 402.110. See KRS 64.012.
KRS 64.012 was amended in 1982 under two Acts: H.B. 141 and H.B. 456. House Bill 141 provides, inter alia, that the clerk's fee for the "marriage license (issued by the clerk) , bond, certificate and recording" is $14.00 instead of the $4.00 as enacted in the original creation of KRS 64.012 in 1978. However, H.B. 456 shows the clerk's fee for the "marriage license, bond, certificate and recording" as remaining at the old $4.00 figure. H.B. 456 was the later legislation. The Kentucky statutes publications of both Banks-Baldwin and Bobbs-Merrill show for KRS 64.012 the clerk's fee for the "marriage license, bond, certificate and recording" as being $14.00. Here the Statutes Reviser, in the process of codification, examined both of the above 1982 bills and read them together under the doctrine of pari materia. One of the bills, as we said above, made no change in the old $4.00 fee. The other bill changed the fee from $4.00 to $14.00. The Reviser, in certifying the legislation on KRS 64.012 to the publishers has, in our opinion, correctly concluded that the General Assembly intended to change the fee to $14.00. In thus being sensitive to the "change" in the fee, effect has been given to what the legislature has enacted. See