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IN AND AROUND THE CAPITOL
Home Lands
claimants attack billWINNERS, LOSERS
By Pat Omandam
Star-BulletinIn the mid-1990s, after waiting for a homestead lot since 1959, Sam Yong filed a claim with a state panel reviewing cases of mismanagement at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Although the panel ruled in his favor, Yong and more than 2,700 other Hawaiian claimants waited three years for the state Legislature to begin
acting on the first of these claims, which it never did.
Instead, they watched as the state allowed the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel to dissolve on Dec. 31, 1999 -- even though the panel still had 1,376 of 2,752 claims to complete.
Now, a bill before the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee would require the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to continue and resolve the claims process started by the review panel. But the measure would bar claimants from suing the state until the process is completed.
Hawaiians, however, said they are tired and frustrated with the legislative process, and want nothing other than to get their day in state court.
More than 40 people testified against House Bill 2733 last week, and they urged committee members to kill the bill when it comes up for a decision Thursday.
"I have tried to work with the Legislature for too long," Yong said. "I have followed the procedures prescribed by law, and I am ready to have my day in court."
Melissa W.L. Seu, staff attorney at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., said the bill takes away the claimants' right to sue for the breaches of trust they suffered.
The Legislature set up the claims process eight years ago and claimants jumped through all the legal hoops put before them, only to have the whole process pulled out from under their feet, she said.
"Now that the claimants are asserting their right to sue the state in court, this bill wants to take away that right," Seu said.
"Essentially, HB 2733 is trying to change the rules on the claimants again. Where is the fairness in that? You set up this process. Let it run its course."
Attorney Thomas Grande, who represents claimants who have filed lawsuits against the state, said the measure is untimely, unconstitutional, unfair and unconscionable.
"If the Legislature passes this bill and it is enacted into law, it will not survive a constitutional challenge," Grande said.
"If it does survive, it only prolongs and makes worse the damage already done by the state in fulfillment of its trust obligations," he said. "It makes a bad situation worse."
The state attorney general's office and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands took no official position on the bill, but both favored any measure that can resolve all claims fairly.
State Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R, Kailua) likened the bill to "the fox guarding the hen house," and apologized to Hawaiians for not resolving this issue over the last nine years.
"I think it's a shameful, shameful period in Hawaii's history," she said.
Here is the time line of the claims process set up under the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Individual Claims Review Panel: Breach of trust claims process
May 1991: State panel created to address breach of trust claims against Hawaiian Home Lands.
Source: Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.
WINNERS & LOSERS
WINNERS
LOSERS
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