Morris

— We are called upon to inquire into the validity of certain amended regulations of the Health and Welfare Agency reducing benefits provided under the California Medical Assistance Program, popularly known as MediCal. Accordingly, as required by long established and unassailable California precedents, we here discharge our responsibility to determine whether the Agency has acted in obedience to the mandate of the Legislature or has ignored or violated it. [1] Our function is to inquire into the legality of the regulations, not their wisdom. Nor do we superimpose upon the agency any policy judgments of our own. [2] Administrative regulations that violate acts of the Legislature are void and no protestations that they are merely an exercise of administrative discretion can sanctify them. They must conform to the legislative will if we are to preserve an orderly system of government.

As we shall explain, we have concluded that the regulations under review are violative of the pertinent law in two major respects: (1) by restricting physicians’ services for recipients of public assistance without eliminating the medically indigent from the Medi-Gal program; and (2) by eliminating…

I dissent. I would reverse the judgment of the trial court. Our government is divided into three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial, and this court should not invade the powers of the legislative or executive branches of the government, which in my opinion has been done by the majority opinion in the instant case. It is not the business of this court to pronounce policy. Self-restraint is of the essence of the judiciary. Our Constitution does not authorize the court to sit in judgment on the wisdom of the actions of the legislative or executive brandies of the government.

The superior court entered judgment enjoining defendants from implementing certain emergency regulations, the net effect of which was to reduce the level of services provided under the Medi-Cal Program, effective September 1, 1967. The emergency regulations represented the Administrator’s decision as to how outgo under the Medi-Cal Program should be brought into balance with the monies which had been appropriated by the 1967 Legislature.

The superior court agreed that outgo had to be balanced with the available funds but held nevertheless that the Administrator had gone beyond the authority granted…

I dissent. In 1967 the Legislature, with full knowledge that the funds appropriated for Medi-Cal were insufficient to continue all the services to all the beneficiaries to which the program had been extended, adopted certain all-important amendments. In the last of these amendments adopted by chapter 1421 of the Statutes of 1967 (regular session) the Legislature added a new section (§ 14103.7) 1 directing that the Administrator, when reducing services in order to maintain the program within the fiscal limits, shall “to the extent feasible, make proportionate reductions in all services, rather than eliminating any service or services entirely. ’ ’

*783 The trial court and the majority of this court construe this section in context with the entire maze of statutory provisions to which it was added and arrive at one conclusion. The Administrator, however, viewed the new section 14103.7, as controlling, and to the extent that it presented any conflict with any of the other relevant sections (14105, 14056, 14053 and 14006.5) as superseding those earlier enactments.

The proper test as to which interpretation is correct depends upon the construction to he accorded the phrase in section…