Recommendation 9

The government should, in response to this report, publish the lessons it has learned from the Afghan data-breach injunction and set out clear principles governing when it or any other public body may exceptionally seek an injunction preventing disclosure of a matter of widespread public interest. Those principles should include requirements for: periodic reassessment of necessity and proportionality against recorded criteria; controlled external challenge at the earliest safe stage; minimum expectations for parliamentary notification; arrangements for audit and Accounting Officer assurance; and clear ministerial accountability for applications to maintain, vary or discharge the injunction. (Recommendation, Paragraph 106)