Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 1, Number 8, 1 October 1984 — Appeals Court Ruling Results in Full Trial for Hawaiians [ARTICLE]

Appeals Court Ruling Results in Full Trial for Hawaiians

By Bill Tagupa C ultural Affairs Officer The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an important ruling relative to native Hawaiians with respect to the Hawaiian Home Commission and a suit Filed by the KeaukahaPanaewa Community Association and several individual homesteaders. The court had held in an earlier appeal that there was no implied right under the Admission Act to sue. The three-judge panel, however, said that a Iong-standing civil rights statute permitted an alternative means to sue. The K-PCA suit alleged violations of the trust provisions of the 1959 Hawaii State Admission Act. The court based its opinion on a 1981 U.S. Supreme Court decision whereby private individuals could sue for alleged violations of federal statutes of a civil riehts nature.

In passing the Admission Act, the San Francisco court noted, Congress did not prohibit private enforcement of its provisions and that the Act created rights whieh native Hawaiians could enforce. Since the H H C could not sho w that the Admission Act had "unusually elaborate enforcement provisions" whieh were entrusted to a government agency, the native Hawaiian p!aintiffs were entitled to judicial review of their complaint. ln their decision, the appellate court reaffirmed that the Admission Act "mandates establishment of a trust for the betterment of native Hawaiians"and that such a trust obligation was a "condition

of Statehood" and a "compact with the United States." The controversy surfaced in the early I970's when the County of Hawaii eonstructed a flood control project involving approximately 25 acres of Hawaiian Home Lands. An agreement between the HHC and the county government was reached whereby the commission agreed to convey part of the land to the county in exchange for equivalent acreage. No such exchange, however, took plaee. The case now will be reinstated in federal district court for a full trial.