As the fate of Abigail Kawananakoa’s $215 million trust is debated in probate court, a related issue continues to nag the parties in the case.

Is the court following the state’s open records law?

The question has reached the state Supreme Court and, along the way, prompted the recusal of Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald.

The matter emerged after First Circuit Court R. Mark Browning allowed dozens of pleadings in the high-profile trust fight to remain sealed and obscured from public view contrary to the guidance and legal precedent established by the state Supreme Court.

It was detailed in a July 15 story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and blew up after a reporter for another news organization filed a petition for a writ with the high court, asking that it compel Browning to unseal the filings.

In his petition, Hawaii News Now reporter Rick Daysog cited violations of the First Amendment and of the instructions by the Supreme Court to judges in Oahu Publications Inc. v. Takase.

Those instructions included holding a public hearing on anything that requires redactions or sealing, and making findings of fact and conclusions of law to support the move.

In a subsequent filing, Daysog asked the court to disclose the substance of a July 10 communication between Recktenwald and Browning, who apparently told the Kawananakoa attorneys in a status conference that he was called by Recktenwald about an editorial he read in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about the Kawananakoa case.

“Recktenwald expressed concern to him about the image of the judiciary and possible loss of credibility,” the filing said. Browning added that Recketenwald told him that the writ “would not be heard anytime soon.”

In a formal response, Recktenwald recused himself while ignoring the specifics of the alleged phone conversation.

Later, the high court, with First Circuit Judge Keith Hiraoka sitting in for Recktenwald, asked the parties to file responses to Daysog’s petition.

A few days after that, Browning appeared to remedy the Takase violations by ordering the parties to file redacted versions of sealed filings.

The original parties in the case have been ordered not to talk to the media about anything in the case that still remains in dispute.

In court documents, however, parties representing successor trustee James Wright and the Abigail KK Kawananakoa Foundation argue that the record still falls short of complying with the Takase requirements.

“Because significant pleadings remain completely sealed, the public has been deprived of information of public importance and public interest that is essential to accurately understand the values at issue in the trust proceedings,” attorneys of the foundation wrote in their response.

Among the documents still sealed is the report of a California psychiatrist hired to conduct a mental evaluation of Kawananakoa after her stroke last year.

The sealed reports “must be available to the public, to hold the court and the parties accountable to Ms. Kawananakoa’s best interest and her right to a fair and just court process, and to assure the public that the judicial system is functioning properly to protect these interests,” the foundation’s filing said.

But Kawananakoa attorney Michael Lilly and Michael Rudy, attorney for the heiress’ wife, Veronica Gail Worth, said in a filing that the psychiatric report contains highly confidential and private medical information that is protected and should remain sealed.