Heal Loudly Movement Announces Proposed Legislative Amendment to the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025 Addressing Protective Order Abuse.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Heal Loudly Movement Announces Proposed Legislative Amendment to the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025 Addressing Protective Order Abuse

Washington, DC — The Heal Loudly Movement announces a proposed legislative amendment to be added to the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025. The amendment, titled the Protective Order Integrity and Abuse Prevention Amendment, addresses systemic failures in protective order frameworks that are increasingly exploited as tools of coercion, retaliation, and post separation legal abuse.

Protective orders were created to provide safety and legal protection for victims of abuse. However, survivors nationwide report consistent patterns in which these systems are misused through serial filings, forum shopping, false or contradictory allegations, and bad faith litigation. This misuse often results in financial devastation, loss of housing or employment, reputational harm, and repeated due process violations, while enabling continued coercive control through the courts.

The proposed amendment restores integrity to protective order systems by recognizing coercive control and legal abuse in statute, strengthening judicial review standards, and creating accountability mechanisms for demonstrably malicious or vexatious filings. The amendment preserves access to protection for legitimate victims while closing loopholes that allow repeat misuse of the legal system.

Key provisions include mandatory consideration of patterned and cross jurisdictional filings, prompt evidentiary hearings following ex parte orders, enhanced judicial authority to identify abuse of process, narrowly tailored sanctions for bad faith litigation, mandatory judicial training on coercive control and post separation abuse, and improved data collection to identify systemic trends and inform future reform.

This amendment will be introduced as an addition to the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025. A public petition supporting the Act is available on Change.org for review and signature.

The Heal Loudly Movement will continue engaging lawmakers, judicial committees, survivor advocates, and legal professionals nationwide to advance this amendment and ensure that protective order systems fulfill their intended purpose of safety, due process, and accountability.

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HEAL LOUDLY MOVEMENT

Proposed Amendment to the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025

Title X

Protective Order Integrity and Abuse Prevention

Be it enacted by the Congress of the United States:

Section 1001. Short Title.

This Title may be cited as the Protective Order Integrity and Abuse Prevention Amendment of 2025.

Section 1002. Congressional Findings and Purpose.

Congress finds that:

(a) Protective orders are intended to provide immediate safety and legal protection to individuals facing credible threats of violence or abuse.

(b) Protective order systems are increasingly misused as tools of coercion, retaliation, intimidation, and post separation control.

(c) Serial filings, forum shopping, false or contradictory allegations, and litigation conducted in bad faith constitute post separation abuse and abuse of process.

(d) Existing statutory frameworks frequently fail to recognize coercive control, psychological abuse, and patterned litigation behavior, resulting in due process violations and continued harm.

(e) The absence of standardized screening, cross jurisdictional visibility, and accountability mechanisms enables repeat misuse of protective order systems.

The purpose of this Title is to preserve the protective function of protective orders while preventing abuse of process, ensuring due process, and recognizing coercive control and post separation legal abuse as actionable harms.

Section 1003. Definitions.

(a) “Coercive Control” means a pattern of conduct intended to dominate, intimidate, isolate, exploit, or control another individual through psychological manipulation, threats, legal actions, or other non physical means.

(b) “Legal Abuse” or “Abuse of Process” means the use of legal proceedings, including protective orders, filings, or motions, primarily to harass, retaliate against, intimidate, or cause financial or psychological harm rather than to obtain legitimate legal relief.

(c) “Patterned Filings” means multiple legal actions or protective order petitions filed by the same party against the same or related parties that demonstrate repetitive, contradictory, or escalating conduct.

(d) “Bad Faith Filing” means a filing made with knowledge of its falsity, reckless disregard for the truth, or for an improper purpose.

Section 1004. Enhanced Judicial Review of Protective Order Petitions.

(a) Courts shall consider evidence of patterned filings, prior dismissed actions, and related proceedings across jurisdictions when evaluating protective order petitions.

(b) Temporary protective orders issued ex parte shall require a prompt evidentiary hearing to provide the respondent a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

(c) Courts are authorized to access and review records from other courts relating to prior protective order filings involving the same parties, consistent with due process protections.

Section 1005. Recognition of Coercive Control and Legal Abuse.

(a) Courts may consider evidence of coercive control and legal abuse in determining whether a protective order petition is filed in good faith.

(b) Evidence of abuse of process may constitute grounds for denial, modification, or dismissal of a protective order petition.

(c) Courts may impose safeguards to prevent continued misuse of the legal system while preserving access for legitimate victims.

Section 1006. Sanctions for Bad Faith or Vexatious Filings.

(a) Upon a finding by clear and convincing evidence that a party has engaged in bad faith or vexatious filings, a court may impose sanctions including:

(1) Filing restrictions

(2) Monetary penalties

(3) Award of attorney’s fees and costs

(4) Requirement of judicial pre approval for future protective order filings

(b) Sanctions shall be narrowly tailored to avoid deterring legitimate victims from seeking protection.

Section 1007. Judicial Training and Education.

(a) The Judicial Conference shall develop and implement mandatory training on coercive control, post separation abuse, and legal abuse for judges and court personnel.

(b) Training shall include guidance on identifying patterned litigation and distinguishing legitimate safety concerns from abuse of process.

Section 1008. Data Collection and Oversight.

(a) The Attorney General shall establish mechanisms for collecting data on protective order filings, dismissals, findings of abuse of process, and imposed sanctions.

(b) Aggregated data shall be reviewed periodically to evaluate the effectiveness of this Title and inform future legislative action.

Section 1009. Severability.

If any provision of this Title or its application is held invalid, the remainder of this Title and its application shall not be affected.

Section 1010. Effective Date.

This Title shall take effect on the date of enactment of the Voiceless Justice Act of 2025.