STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1367

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 1297

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred H.B. No. 1297, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE PENAL CODE,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to amend the penal code to allow for the preparation of a corpse for burial and burial of a corpse consistent with traditional Hawaiian cultural customs and practices.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies.

 

     Your Committee finds that this measure would allow for the preparation and burial of iwi to be cost efficient and a more efficient use of limited burial space.  Your Committee further finds that a large number of the requests for financial assistance made to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs each year arise from funeral and burial costs that the families cannot afford.  This measure would help to address this situation.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by deleting its contents and inserting language from S.B. No. 1166, S.D. 2 (Regular Session of 2015), a substantially similar companion measure that was earlier passed by the Senate, which:

 

     (1)  Provides that the preparation of a corpse for burial or cremation in a manner consistent with traditional Hawaiian cultural customs and practices and the burial or cremation of a corpse prepared consistent with traditional Hawaiian customs and practices shall not constitute the abuse of a corpse within the penal code; and

 

     (2)  Inserts an effective date of January 7, 2059.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1297, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1297, H.D. 1, S.D. 1.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

 

 

 

________________________________

GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair