Under the rule of law, governments derive their legitimacy from fair and transparent legal processes. When those processes are manipulated – especially by the very institutions responsible for upholding them – public trust diminishes and democracy loses out. The damage may be invisible at first, but over time it weakens the pillars of good governance and undermines the conditions for effective scrutiny. By using a super-injunction to conceal a major data breach involving the Taliban from public scrutiny, the UK government significantly undermined that principle.

When it comes to silencing the press, few legal instruments in the UK are more potent – or more opaque – than the super-injunction. These orders forbid not only the publication of sensitive material, but any mention of the injunction itself. They are rarely used, and typically in civil cases to protect celebrity privacy, such as blocking tabloids from reporting on extramarital affairs. In the hands of the state, they cross the line from legitimate legal protection to a mechanism for evading both public and parliamentary scrutiny. Even when national security is at stake, confidentiality must have defined limits and be subject to independent oversight. To conceal decisions, costs and such an egregious failure in this manner deprives the public of their fundamental right to know – and Parliament of its ability to hold the government to account.

The Afghan Files case makes the danger plain. A data breach affecting over 19,000 Afghans was hidden behind a legal gag order obtained by the Ministry of Defence under ex-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, alongside a secret resettlement scheme with projected costs that peaked at £7 billion. The breach was alarming, but the cover-up was systemic.

Without parliamentary debate, a free press and proper scrutiny of public spending, good governance cannot exist. While the initial use of an injunction on grounds of individual safety may be justified, escalation to a super-injunction reflects a tendency towards political manoeuvre over basic accountability. With an election on the horizon and migration paramount, disclosing a ruinous data breach and a multibillion-pound resettlement scheme risked serious political fallout for the Tory party. The gag order thus served as a shield for ministers, not the wider public interest. It protected the government from accountability at its most necessary juncture.

The principle is clear: without extraordinary justification, exceptional powers cease to be truly exceptional. The Afghan Files risk normalising the use of super-injunctions not as instruments of last resort, but as a default means of suppressing political risk. Politicians will always try to conceal their mistakes. Super-injunctions offer the legal means to do so, bypassing oversight and escaping consequence. If permitted to stand, this precedent could creep into future state failures – from the next Windrush scandal to a future Chilcot inquiry – where the need for accountability inevitably collides with political embarrassment.

The longer such powers remain unrestrained, the more inevitable their abuse becomes. Governments should be barred from obtaining super-injunctions, unless in the strictest, time bound situations that involve imminent threat to life or national security. Any non-disclosure mandates should undergo periodic judicial review – and more importantly, parliamentary oversight. Furthermore, a full inquiry into how this case was allowed to develop in secret for almost two years is crucial. Parliament must examine not only the breach itself, but the executive decisions that deliberately concealed the matter. Scrutiny should extend to the legal counsel sought, the grounds for sustained secrecy and whether ministers acted in good faith. The law must catch up, before the exception becomes the rule.