The authorities mounted a challenge yesterday to the Chief Justice’s decision not to stop the media airing further material from a leaked Police dossier on the Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) scandal.

Mr. Justice Ground ruled on Monday that the right of the public to know about the high-profile probe into serious allegations about public figures including Premier Ewart Brown outweighed concern that the file was a confidential Police document.

“The (BHC) allegations are not gratuitous, in that there is some evidence to support them, as set out in the material so far reported.

“Nor do the allegations concern the private personal life of those concerned. They touch upon their conduct in office,” he said at the time.

“In those circumstances I think that the public interest is genuinely engaged, and this is not a case of the public being officiously interested in matters which do not concern them. I think, therefore, that the balance comes down firmly against restraining the media’s freedom (of) expression.”

Police Commissioner George Jackson and Attorney General Philip Perinchief launched the action against the Island’s media outlets after ZBM and the Mid-Ocean News published extracts from the documents on May 23 and June 1 respectively.

The leaked dossier — said to run to thousands of pages—- reportedly revealed that Premier Ewart Brown, former Premier Jennifer Smith, former Ministers Renée Webb and Arthur Hodgson and construction boss Zane DeSilva were investigated by Police looking into allegations of corruption at the BHC.

The Commissioner and Attorney General asked for a ban on the so-far unpublished sections being reported, although the contents of these were not outlined during the hearing.

Less than 24 hours after Mr. Justice Ground ruled against this, they took their fight to the Court of Appeal.

Their lawyer, Delroy Duncan, repeated arguments made in front of Mr. Justice Ground last week, asking the appeals justices to find that the Chief Justice did not weigh the balance correctly.

Mr. Duncan argued that the publication ban should be granted on grounds including that the documents are confidential.

He also cited a fear of what Deputy Commissioner Roseanda Young called “more confidential, and possibly unsubstantiated information” being released.

Mr. Duncan further submitted that future investigations could be harmed if Police officers and informers fear publication of such documents in future.

And, he argued, it is for the media outlets to tell the court about the unused portions of the confidential documents in order to prove publication would be in the public interest.

Mr. Justice Ground had taken the view that it was for the Commissioner and the Attorney General to put the material before him. They did not do so. Saul Froomkin QC, representing the publishers of this newspaper and its sister paper the Mid-Ocean News, successfully argued in the Supreme Court that the press had a constitutional right to use more material from the file, in the public interest.

Yesterday afternoon, he asked the appeals justices to consider overnight whether they needed to hear him make the same arguments again.

Mr. Froomkin submitted that this was not necessary, and the appeal should be thrown out, because they have no power to interfere with the discretion of Mr. Justice Ground in this case.

The appeal continues. Meanwhile, the justices have ordered that Bermuda’s broadcasting organisations and the Bermuda Sun should not report further revelations from the dossier until the appeal concludes.

The Mid-Ocean News and The Royal Gazette have agreed to extend a previous undertaking made not to do. * Watch for updates to this story today on The Royal Gazette website, www.theroyalgazette.com