Hawaiians sue state
in home lands case

The plaintiffs want to prevent a panel
from reviewing their homestead claims

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

Attorneys for 70 native Hawaiians have asked the state court to stop a panel of state officials from reviewing their claims against the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and to declare unconstitutional the law that established the panel.

The plaintiffs include people who are Hawaiian homestead recipients and others who have been waiting for years for a homestead lease. They are among more than 3,600 claimants who say they have been wronged by the way the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has implemented the homestead act.

In 1991, the state Legislature established a panel of five Hawaiians to resolve claims brought against the department.

The 1997 Legislature balked at the first result of the panel, which recommended that the state pay a total $6 million in damages to 165 claimants. State Attorney General Margery Bronster testified that the panelists incorrectly recommended compensation to claimants who said they were harmed by waiting an unreasonably long time for a homestead.

The lawmakers did not approve recommendations from the Individual Claims Review Panel but voted to create a "working group" of state officials to establish criteria for resolving claims.

"The Legislature took the panel's power away, in effect saying 'do it over again because we didn't like the first outcome,'" said Melissa W.L. Seu of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.

"In the suit we filed Monday we are asking the court to declare whether it was constitutional for the Legislature to set up this working group. We're saying they are violating the doctrine of separation of powers with the legislative branch setting up an executive body to interpret the law, which should be the Judiciary's job," Seu said.

"They are also violating the clients' due process right because the working group members have an interest in the outcome."

"It is also a breach of the state's trust duty to Hawaiians," she said.

"The real purpose is to bring out this unfairness. The state shouldn't be allowed to present a method of resolving problems, then take it back if they don't like the results."

The suit names the members of the working group, which includes Bronster; Kali Watson, director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; Earl Anzai, director of the state Department of Budget and Finance, and private attorney Peter Trask, who chaired the original review panel.

The suit also names Gov. Ben Cayetano and the other members of the original claims review panel: Monsignor Charles A. Kekumano, Marie A. McDonald and Warren C.R. Perry.

Seu said the claims for compensation fell into three categories: those who have waited for years without receiving a lease; others which are classified as construction claims dealing with flaws in the lots or the homes built; and a third group of people wronged by the department because of administrative errors such as lost applications or incorrectly applied policies.

"A whole lot of the remaining 3,500 claims would be eliminated by what the working panel decides," said Seu. "They will be eliminating whole categories of claims. Within a category such as construction claims, there are wide individual differences, your construction claim could be entirely different from mine.

"The original panel was set up as a neutral administrative body. We are also asking the court to tell the original panel not to follow what the working panel decides."