Fresh off the Supreme Court’s Honolulu rail ruling, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation is seeking a stop to the removal of Native Hawaiian burial remains at Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu. 

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of NHLC, saying that the state erred in allowing the city to begin construction of the rail project without conducting a full archaeological inventory survey on the site first. 

The ruling has implications for the Kawaiahao Church case, according to David Kimo Frankel, an attorney with NHLC. As in the rail case, the State Historic Preservation Division allowed construction to begin without conducting an AIS.

Frankel filed a second motion with the intermediate court of appeals this week, on behalf of his client Dana Naone Hall, seeking to stop the removal of iwi at the church. 

Dozens of remains have been found since the church began working on construction of a multi-purpose center in 2009. Last week another 600 burials were found, another reason why Frankel is arguing that the removal of iwi be stopped.

“My client wants no more iwi to be taken out of the ground and she wants the iwi that have been removed to be replaced from where they came,” Frankel told Civil Beat. 

It’s not clear what the full implications would be for the construction of the multi-purpose center if iwi couldn’t be removed from the site. Frankel did say that the church would have to alter its plans, and perhaps build something smaller.