HAGÅTÑA — Governor Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Guam on Wednesday asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment clarifying whether the Guam Legislature can enact or apply statutes in a way that effectively prevents her from carrying out her constitutionally assigned duty to establish and maintain public hospitals on the island.
The petition, filed as Case No. CRQ 26001, is rooted in a provision of the Organic Act of Guam that expressly requires the governor to “establish, maintain, and operate public-health services in Guam, including hospitals, dispensaries, and quarantine stations.” The governor argues that this is a specific, enumerated power granted directly to the executive by Congress and that it cannot be nullified or transferred through the operation of generally applicable Guam statutes.
The dispute is not hypothetical. Leon Guerrero has been taking steps to establish new hospital infrastructure in the village of Mangilao using federal funds, including money subgranted for utility and infrastructure work through executive agencies. The petition states that questions have arisen about whether statutory approval mechanisms under Guam law, including a provision requiring the Attorney General to review certain contracts for correctness of form and legality, can be applied in a way that requires another officer’s discretionary approval as a precondition to the governor carrying out her Organic Act duty. The governor says that construction of the law would effectively transfer final execution authority away from her and undermine the specific grant of power that Congress conferred.
The petition makes clear that it does not seek to invalidate the legislature’s authority to appropriate funds, regulate procurement, or enact general laws governing public administration. The governor is also not challenging the Attorney General’s good-faith execution of duties as defined by statute. The narrower question, as the petition frames it, is structural: whether a statute of general application can be interpreted or applied in a manner that conditions or prevents execution of a specific enumerated gubernatorial duty.
“This request is about clarity in the law,” Leon Guerrero said in a statement accompanying the filing. “Congress placed the responsibility to establish and maintain hospitals in Guam with the Governor. The Court’s guidance will help ensure that responsibility can be carried out in a way that is both consistent with the Organic Act and Guam law.”
The governor is asking the court to use its declaratory judgment authority under 7 GCA Section 4104, which allows the governor to seek direct rulings from the Supreme Court of Guam on matters of great public importance where the normal litigation process would cause undue delay. The petition argues that proceeding through trial court, pleadings, discovery, and appellate review could take months or years, during which infrastructure work would remain stalled, construction sequencing would be disrupted, and federal funding deadlines could expire. The governor notes that relief granted after the fact cannot recover expired federal funds or fully remedy delays in public health infrastructure development.
The legal argument rests heavily on precedent from the Guam Supreme Court’s own prior rulings, including In re Leon Guerrero, 2021 Guam 6, in which the court held that legislative provisions preventing the governor from independently determining quarantine policy intruded too far into executive authority and negated the command of the Organic Act. The petition argues that the same principle applies here: where the Organic Act confers a specific power upon the governor, a generally applicable statute cannot be read to nullify that power or require the approval of another officer as a condition of its exercise.
The governor has asked the court to expedite the briefing and hearing schedule, issue declarations confirming her enumerated Organic Act authority over hospital establishment, and declare that disputes over the legality of executive action under that authority are resolved through judicial review rather than unilateral application of statutory approval mechanisms.
