State v. Pratt

Opinion of the Court by

NAKAYAMA, J.

A'ticle XII, § 7 of the Hawaii Constitution provides:

The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua‘a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights.

Haw. Const. art. XII, § 7. Over the course of several cases, this court has interpreted this provision, along with statutory sources of protections, in order to define the scope of the legal…