GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Zoltan Szekely
August 13, 2016
I would like to acknowledge the alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse and their families who came forward with complaints in the last few months. Their testimonies detailing events that happened over 40 years ago must be heard with attention and sincerity. The proposed bill tries to make justice for the alleged victims. However, some of the circumstances of this piece of legislation raise concerns.
Parts of the bill remain unclear and unexplained. It applies to alleged victims whose claimed abuse occurred a long time ago and the statute of limitation prevented them in the past and still prevents them now from filing a lawsuit. The Guam Legislature had already chosen a solution in 2011. The statute of limitation was lifted for two years, but nobody came forward with a sexual abuse complaint.
Simply overriding an existing law without substantial and compelling reason raises serious doubts. Bill Pesch writes in the PDN on June 26: “Although appellate courts may allow a legislature to alter the civil statute of limitations for pursuing cases of child sexual abuse once, there is serious doubt that they will allow it twice. This may well be considered an ‘expo facto’ law,” a law enacted backward in time.
It was said that the “intent is to remove the current section requiring ‘certificates of merit,’ as such information would have a chilling effect on those sexual abuse survivors who choose to seek justice against their victimizers.” Well, was it not the Guam Legislature that created the Certificates of Merit section in the current law at the first place? We need at least some explanation here.
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