Should child sexual abuse victims be given another 20 years to sue their tormentors for damages?

That’s the key provision in a bill that was the subject of a state Senate committee hearing this week in Harrisburg.

The three-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing came against the backdrop of Roman Catholic Church scandals and a renewed push to relax laws that prevent child sexual abuse victims in Pennsylvania from suing after age 30.

The provision would raise the cutoff age to 50 and would have the effect of allowing victims to file civil lawsuits even if their window of opportunity to do so had closed under current law that allows such a lawsuit. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly in April.

Under current law, people who say they were abused as children can bring civil lawsuits until they turn 30. The bill would raise that to 50. People who are over 30, but not yet 50, would be allowed to sue.

It would be simple enough to consider the proposed amendment on its merits alone: A statute of limitations makes sense when the passage of years can cloud testimony, defendants and witnesses die off, and opportunities for fraudulent claims increase exponentially. It’s why the state imposed the age limit in the first place, believing the age-30 cutoff provides ample time to sue and receive justice.

However, a more thorough review of child sex-abuse cases in recent years lends credence to the claims of some victims that incidents can lie buried in suppressed memory and shame for decades.

But it’s never quite that simple in Harrisburg. There always seem to be political side-issues in play.

Chief among them is the Catholic Church. A March 1 grand jury report from the office of Attorney General Kathleen Kane, involving a scandal in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, had recommended that lawmakers abolish the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of sexual offenses against minors and urged them to suspend the civil statute of limitations on sexual abuse claims.

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference opposes the changes. so does the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, which represents for-profit insurers.

But the picture gets even more complicated because Kane’s chief surrogate, Solicitor General Bruce L. Castor Jr., told the Senate committee that it would be unconstitutional to change the state law to retroactively give victims more time to sue — even though his boss, Kane, was the first to recommend the change.

Four law professors who testified agreed with Castor that the changes would be unconstitutional. Two other professors disagreed.

Given the differing expert opinions, it would be wise for the Senate to fall in line with the House and pass the measure, then let the state courts determine the constitutionality of any changes in the law.

That’s exactly why our state government provides for a separation of powers: legislators make the laws and the courts interpret them.

The system should be allowed to work the way it was intended to. The Senate should not shy away from this vital issue, particularly when the legal experts are not in consensus about its constitutionality.