A temporary restraining order preventing construction of a multipurpose building at Kawaiaha’o Church will remain in effect at least through Friday as a state judge considers arguments made Tuesday in a lawsuit seeking to stop the controversial project.

The lawsuit, filed two weeks ago by Paulette Kaleikini, alleges that the church is violating a state permit that requires removal of all human burials on the construction site next to the historic Honolulu church’s main building.

Kaleikini said three members of her family were buried on the project site when it was used as a cemetery, and no records indicate those remains were previously relocated.

Circuit Court Judge Edwin Nacino previously granted a temporary restraining order until he could hear the case. Kaleikini is seeking a preliminary injunction against further construction.

Church officials on Tuesday said no construction is occurring on top of burials and that careful excavation of the project site will ensure all burials are removed prior to construction of the building in compliance with a state Department of Health permit to disinter graves.

"The church is in compliance with the Department of Health permit," Michael Lorusso, an attorney representing the church, told the judge.

However, David Kimo Frankel, an attorney with the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. representing Kaleikini, also raised an issue as to whether state law conflicts with the church’s intention to decertify the project site as a cemetery only after the planned building is completed.

The Department of Health, along with the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, included decertification after construction as part of conditions for the disinterment permit issued in October 2010.

But Frankel said decertification needs to occur before construction under state law and the decertification process administered by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, which regulates cemeteries.

Nacino indicated he might issue a ruling on the case by Friday. "The court has to do its homework on this matter," he said.

Nacino said the temporary restraining order will remain in effect at least through Friday.

It is the second time that construction has been stopped since early 2009, when work began on the $17.5 million building. The facility is intended to help the 159-year-old church, referred to as "the Westminster Abbey of Hawaii," broaden its mission and membership.

An initial halt that lasted nearly two years occurred after the church unearthed 69 burials in the process of digging utility line trenches.

Another attempt to prevent construction failed. In that case, Hawaiian cultural specialist Dana Naone Hall filed a lawsuit in 2009 contending the state’s burial law protecting Native Hawaiian burials was being violated, but a judge said the law didn’t apply because of an exemption for cemeteries, given that the Kawaiaha’o burials were of a Christian nature as evidenced by coffins.