The chairman of the Saville tribunal has hinted that European human rights legislation may force it to order the disclosure of journalists' sources, because of the obligation to conduct a full and open inquiry in cases of alleged state killing.
Legal argument continued yesterday about the refusal of Channel 4 journalists to hand over notebooks and the names of four British soldiers who gave them crucial information about the Bloody Sunday shootings, in which 14 people died and as many more were injured when paratroopers were sent into Derry's Bogside on January 30th, 1972.
Channel 4 presenter Alex Thomson joined his colleague and then producer, Ms Lena Ferguson, in telling the inquiry that to get information from the soldiers they had to guarantee them total anonymity.
Counsel for the journalists, Mr Andrew Caldecott QC, urged the inquiry to consider the great public interest which hinges on the free flow of information to the press, especially information which may expose significant wrongdoing.
He pointed to the potential "chilling effect" on future journalistic informants if orders were made for disclosure of sources.
Recent judicial rulings, he said, had stressed the enormous importance of the media as an alternative route to the truth. If the press could not disclose major wrongdoing, the investigations and process of inquiry which stemmed from such disclosures would not happen.
The chairman, Lord Saville, pointed out that in a ruling over two years ago the tribunal had weighed the public interest in non-disclosure of journalistic sources against the public interest in the course of justice in these proceedings.
He invited counsel to deal with the question raised by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, now incorporated into British domestic law.
Article 2, on the right to life, embodies a procedural requirement that in cases of state killing or alleged state killing, there should be proper, complete and full inquiry.
Lord Anthony Gifford QC, for the family of James Wray, pointed out that the soldiers interviewed on Channel 4 included a mark-sman from another regiment who claimed to have been close to some of the paratroopers who fired on Bloody Sunday. He had said he did not see any armed civilians and heard no incoming shots at the soldiers.
Lord Gifford said it was absolutely essential for the tribunal to get evidence from this soldier. He said there was a moral responsibility on this man and the other anonymous soldiers to release the journalists from the undertaking of confidentiality which they had given.
Counsel said that these soldiers had done part of their moral duty by contacting Channel 4. They had a further duty to speak out now - a duty to the victims' families, to the journalists who might face imprisonment, and to their consciences.
Civilian witnesses had gone against the grain by speaking about wrongful acts by civilian gunmen, he pointed out, adding: "Soldiers are needed in this inquiry to speak out too; the search for truth and justice depends on those who go against the grain."
The inquiry continues today.