High Court Judge Martin Chamberlain lifted the order Tuesday, saying it was “fundamentally objectionable for decisions that affect the lives and safety of thousands of human beings, and involve the commitment of billions of pounds of public money, to be taken in circumstances where they are completely insulated from public debate.”
Chamberlain had already lifted the super-injunction in May 2024, before the Conservative government successfully appealed before last year’s election. The High Court judge said the ruling had “given rise to serious free speech concerns” and created “scrutiny vacuum.'”
A report into the breach by former Ministry of Defence civil servant Paul Rimmer said there was “little evidence of intent by the Taliban to conduct a campaign of retribution against former officials” and said data the Taliban inherited from the previous Afghan government would already enable them to target individuals.
Tory defense spokesperson James Cartlidge welcomed the apology on behalf of the British state Tuesday. He said the leak “should never have happened and was an unacceptable breach of all relevant data protocols.”
And Cartlidge sought to defend the previous government’s record on transparency, arguing that “when this breach came to light, the immediate priority of the then-government was to avoid a very specific and terrible scenario, namely, an error by an official of the British state leading to torture or even murder of persons in the dataset at the hands of what remains a brutal Taliban regime.”
