Pacific Island Times April 2019 Vol 3 No. 4 | Page 4

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK
Legislating high school love

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

The so-called Romeo and Juliet
law, as we all know, is an
allusion to Shakespeare’s tragic
play that revolves around ill-fated
young lovers, who have to run away
from too many people interfering
with their budding romance. If you
do not know how it ends, it’s proba-
bly because you skipped your litera-
ture class.
Five centuries later, we have ele-
vated to the state level the practice of
interfering with young flames. Their
raw emotions are rendered abstract
by the law. The legal system is bur-
dened by its complexity and trapped
in the numbers provided by law.
An innocent love between two
high-schoolers suddenly
becomes the subject of a
criminal prosecution for
statutory rape when one
hits past the age of pu-
berty, and the continued
relationship is typically
defined as sexual assault
on a child. If convicted,
the older one becomes a
registered sex offender
for life.
Attorney General
Leevin Camacho sees this
anomaly. “The law should
distinguish between child
molesters and teenage consensual
sex,” he said. “The current law does
not promote justice for young indi-
viduals in this circumstance. They
should not receive the same penalties
and consequences as an adult who
forcibly rapes someone. That is not
justice.”
Taking a cue from the attorney
general’s concerns, Speaker Tina
Muna Barnes has introduced Bill 50-
35 that would establish a close-in-age
exception for a criminal sexual con-
duct. The bill also sets a maximum
offender age of 19 and a close-in-age
exception of less than four years.
Which means, a 19-year-old found
having consensual sex with a minor
4
Mar-Vic Cagurangan
[email protected]
Associate Editor
Bruce Lloyd
[email protected]
Associate Editor (Pacific Note/Palau)
Ongerung Kambes Kesolei
[email protected]
over the age of 15 could
be charged with a misde-
meanor offense.
Critics see the bill from
another window. “I think
that this is basically, a
kind of bill or law that
would that would simply
result in more permissive
predatory sexual behavior
directed against young
people,” University of
Guam professor Ron
McNinch said in an inter-
view with KUAM.
That seems like an exaggerated
warning. Romeo and Juliet laws and
clauses concern young adults who
have willingly had sexual relations—
as opposed to “predatory sexual
behavior directed against young
people,” which is already a criminal
offense under the current law. Bill
50-35 seeks to fix the distortions in
the law.
Unfortunately, fixing laws has
become a legislative routine and
lawmakers are trapped in the web
of statutes—some of them deal with
matters that are better left to people’s
personal judgment and decisions.
The legal system tends to find itself
snagged in a conundrum when deal-
ing with legislated morals and values.
Such legislative practice is driven
by the nanny-state syndrome, which
conjures images of a finger-wagging
government forever telling us all
what to do, what not to do, how to
behave.
What’s missing in this discussion
is what matters most— education
and parental responsibility to instill
values in their own children. And if
parents choose to impose a dating
embargo on their own Romeos and
Juliets, it should be their call, not the
state’s.
Unfortunately, fixing laws has become a
legislative routine and lawmakers are trapped
in the web of statutes—some of them deal
with matters that are better left to people’s
personal judgment and decisions.