What do the Afghan leaks tell us about state confidentiality in Great Britain? We enter a dangerous era | Theo Burges

TDuring his week, a British judge at the Supreme Court raised a super instructor to prevent reporting on a leak that was at risk of the life of Afghans who worked with Great Britain. Superin monitoring was originally expected to be in force from September to December 2023. Instead, she gave details about a national scandal that has been hidden for years before the public examination, in an extraordinary example of national security that offers legal cover for a political crisis.

When trying to fix the effects of the leak, both conservative and Labor governments will output £ 850 million GBP. And thousands of Afghans and their families were brought to Great Britain through a secret reorganization program. These significant decisions of several governments have never been publicly examined. How could that happen?

When omitting the superinjunation on Tuesday, Mr. Justice Chamberlain admitted that this was an “unprecedented case”. We are much more used to that superinjunctions in relation to celebrities are granted than to protect state confidentiality. In fact, this was the first time that we know that the government's proposal is a step change that must prevent the spread of potentially harmful or embarrassing information.

This was also the first superin surveillance that we know that it was done Contra Mundum. This meant that it was a crime for anyone to speak publicly that there was a data injury, the various and extensive efforts were made to reduce the damage to the violation or that there were restrictions that prevent reporting on this violation.

The legal remedies that the government of today are revealed in the form of superinjunctions are far greater than all previous governments. The use of a superinjunction in terms of national security matters can certainly mark a new limit in the attempt by the executive, maintaining state confidentiality.

But what was clear In the various applications for the expansion of super instigation, there was an increasing discomfort of the judiciary. In July 2024, Mr. Justice Chamberlain was considered that the super -radiation “could no longer be maintained” – In some cases, due to the inability to enable the public examination, and the fact that those who affect the list to benefit from public pressure on the government was more to do for them. However, the Court of Appeal said it was wrong to raise the arrangement, and so there was super rays. This follows a path of the judiciary that generally speaks into the state in relation to national security. However, this position can only be maintained if the state offers complete and proper disclosure.

The original motivation for the super instance was to protect vulnerable Afghans. The leak of its details is certainly at least the risk from which they were confronted, and it was correct that the government took measures to protect them. However, serious questions have to be asked how the risk for you over the years has been examined in which the super -radiation was present – and whether the retention of information from the public examination improved the situation of those involved.

It should be noted that the reason for Superin surveillance, which was no longer extended, was mainly due to a Whitehall check carried out by Paul Rimmer, a former deputy head of deputy deputy secret services. Essentially, Rimmer explained that the presence of a person on the leaked list was not a “defining factor” for determining the risk for a person, but an element of the risk that was available to the Afghans who had supported the United Kingdom. As soon as this report was made available to the court, it was simply not sustainable to keep the super -radiation. As a result, the judicial tolerance for the position of the government was.

In view of the content of the government's own report, it could be argued that the state had a large part of reducing its own super instance. After the preliminary perspective of Chamberlain on July 1, 2025, the government's legal department confirmed that Defense Minister John Healey had decided to hire the secret Afghan reorganization system and to dismiss the injunction.

It is then worrying that the decision about whether this unprecedented super radiation was necessary or not was apparently up to the government. The public interest can only be defended by a robust judicial analysis that is based on the state, which provides the Court of Justice a complete obligation to provide information. The respect granted to the state in relation to matters of national security is based on the complete and proper disclosure. In connection with apparently flexible state opinion, however, it is questionable whether such a honor can be justified if the main factor can change so easily when determining such applications.

This seems to be particularly true when superinjunctions that are as powerful as these are exerted far beyond their sales date. If the government's opinion is a decisive factor for such applications, one can reasonably question what happens if the government's opinion does not change. Could extensive powers, similar to this super instructor, continue indefinitely and refuse the media to properly check important decisions regarding highly sensitive political affairs?

This unprecedented case raises the question of whether the state is fair and over the board of what it tells the judges and whether the position of the state is sufficiently interviewed in relation to matters of national security. A question that only becomes more urgent than we answer.