In D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners (1974) 11 Cal.3d 1, the California Supreme Court addressed the two principal standards applied by California courts and the United States Supreme Court in reviewing classifications challenged under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution or article I, section 7, of the Constitution of California. The court explained: "The first is the basic and conventional standard for reviewing economic and social welfare legislation in which there is a 'discrimination' or differentiation of treatment between classes or individuals. It manifests restraint by the judiciary in relation to the discretionary act of a co-equal branch of government; in so doing it invests legislation involving such differentiated treatment with a presumption of constitutionality and 'requires merely that distinctions drawn by a challenged statute bear some rational relationship to a conceivable legitimate state purpose.' . . . Moreover, the burden of demonstrating the invalidity of a classification under this standard rests squarely upon the party who assails it." ( D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners, supra, 11 Cal.3d at pp. 16-17.) The court in D'Amico went on to explain that "a more stringent test is applied . . . in cases involving 'suspect classifications' or touching on 'fundamental interests.' Here the courts adopt 'an attitude of active and critical analysis, subjecting the classification to strict scrutiny. Under the strict standard applied in such cases, the state bears the burden of establishing not only that it has a compelling interest which justifies the law but that the distinctions drawn by the law are necessary to further its purpose.'" ( D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 17.)