Four months after the Hawaii Supreme Court nullified the construction permit of the Thirty Meter Telescope, the state Friday announced the appointment of a court officer who will oversee the contested case hearing do-over ordered by the high court.

But TMT foes said they plan to file an objection, claiming the state circumvented the legally prescribed process for choosing a contested case hearings officer.

“The state seems to be wanting to move the process along at the expense of due process,” said Richard Naiwieha Wurdeman, attorney for the Mauna Kea Hui plaintiffs.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources on Friday announced that retired Hawaii island Circuit Judge Riki May Amano will conduct the new contested case hearing to consider a conservation use district permit for the $1.4 billion project.

DLNR Director Suzanne Case told the contested case parties Friday that Amano was the top choice from a list of candidates that was reviewed by a selection committee composed of former state Supreme Court Associate Justice James Duffy, state Deputy Attorney General Stella Kam and Christopher Yuen, a member of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources from Hawaii island.

But Wurdeman said state law requires the BLNR to first decide in a public meeting whether it will conduct a contested case hearing itself. If not, the BLNR chairman can be given the authority to hire the hearing officer. That public meeting never occurred.

State Attorney General Doug Chin issued the statement Friday saying the DLNR followed the correct process in making its appointment.

“Judge Amano is eminently qualified,” Chin said. “There is a process to submit objections to the selection of Judge Amano and we understand that any objections that are submitted will be appropriately considered by the Land Board.”

Objections must be filed by April 15, officials said. Wurdeman said he would be filing as early as next week.

For now the scheduling and timeline of the contested case hearing is up to Amano.

“This is good news,” TMT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said in a statement Friday. “We appreciate the Board of Land and Natural Resources for its selection and look forward to the next steps in the process.”

In February the TMT International Observatory Board announced it would be searching for an alternative site in case it is unable to build here in the next couple of years.

TMT officials said they will need to obtain a permit for construction on Mauna Kea by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, or it will take its next-generation telescope to another mountain.

Amano, a graduate of the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law, was the first full-time female judge appointed to the Hawaii island courts. Serving from 1992 to 2003, she presided over some high-profile cases, including the 1999 and 2000 trials of Frank Pauline Jr. and Albert Ian Schweitzer for the 1991 kidnapping, murder and rape of Dana Ireland.

Born and raised in Hilo but now living in Honolulu where she serves on the Honolulu Ethics Commission, Amano wasn’t afraid to rule against the government. In a 2000 nonjury trial, Amano stuck the state with a $3.3 million verdict in a civil case in which a man who ran his car off the Keaau-Pahoa highway in 1988 sued because of road safety concerns.

Prior to her appointment to the bench, Amano was a deputy attorney general assigned to the departments of Land and Natural Resources, Transportation and Labor and Industrial Relations. She was in private practice from 1981 until 1991.