If people take highly political legal cases against the government, they must be identified

Last month two men issued a legal challenge against the agriculture minister Edwin Poots’ decision to stop Irish Sea border checks.

One of the men is a member of Sinn Fein. His identity is being kept secret.

A reporter for this newspaper, Adam Kula, was one of the few journalists to spot the significance of this breach of open justice and he challenged the secrecy order. While he did so with the support of senior editorial figures in the newspaper and JPI Media, which owns the News Letter, the admirable decision to query anonymity was his own.

Yesterday, the High Court judge in the case upheld the decision not to name ‘Mr X’ (see link below).

While the case raises important issues such as the possible risk to the Sinn Fein member bringing the action, we believe that the ruling was clearly the wrong one.

The principle of transparency in legal proceedings is of the utmost importance in a democracy. There is a UK-wide trend towards infringements on this principle, for reasons ranging from ‘data protection’ to personal sensitivity concerns.

The News Letter has been publishing since 1737, for most of which time transparency has increased, not decreased. If members of the public pursue highly political legal cases against government officials, they must be prepared to be identified and the public has a right to know who they are.

Mr Kula argued there should be a presumption against anonymity in such a case, as indeed there should be — a strong one.

• Sinn Fein man behind major Brexit Protocol legal challege will remain anonymous, court rules

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