MAUNA KEA RULES TO STOP PROTECTORS RULED ILLEGAL
Hawai`i News Now - October 10, 2015
A state judge has invalidated the emergency rules that made it illegal to be on Mauna Kea at night.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the rules in July after activists opposed to the Thirty Meter Telescope blocked the road in an effort to stop its construction at the summit.
The motion was granted Friday afternoon by Big Island Circuit Judge Ronald Ibarra.
David Kauila Kopper, an attorney with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, filed the lawsuit challenging the rules on behalf of E. Kalani Flores. "The court recognized that the state did not follow the rule of law in creating these emergency rules," Kopper said in a statement. "The state can no longer arrest innocent people who are on Mauna Kea at night for cultural or spiritual reasons."
"The state adopted an illegal rule to prevent opposition to the TMT at the expense of sincere cultural practices and public expression," said Kopper. "Cultural practitioners, like Professor Flores, and the public should not have been put in the impossible position of choosing between giving up their nighttime practices on Mauna Kea or becoming a criminal."
"They were privileged rules slapped together in an effort to target our specific right to openly protest, to openly protect our sacred places, our natural resources," said Aloha Aina activist Lanakila Mangauil.
The state said the rules were necessary after activists moved rocks and boulders onto the summit road and DLNR agents were forced to turn everyone around because of concerns for public safety.
A total of 15 people have been arrested since the rule took effect. But one of those arrested said it's still unclear exactly how the judge's decision will affect them.
