The Bloody Sunday inquiry is to appeal against the ruling in the High Court in London last week which quashed its decision not to grant automatic anonymity to 17 soldiers who fired live rounds on Bloody Sunday in Derry on January 30th 1972.
In a statement announcing its intention to launch the appeal, a spokesman said the inquiry's decision "reflected the considerable public importance of the issues raised in the Judicial Review". The Court of Appeal hearing is expected early next month. Last Thursday, judges in the High Court ruled by two to one that Lord Saville's inquiry had failed to consider the soldiers' fundamental human rights when it concluded in May that they should not receive automatic anonymity when the inquiry begins public hearings in Derry in September.
The soldiers successfully overturned that decision on judicial review and the High Court decided that as a consequence the ruling applied to all soldiers in Derry who fired live rounds on Bloody Sunday.
It was the second time Lord Saville's inquiry was rebuked in the High Court regarding anonymity. Last December judges overturned the inquiry's decision last July to grant military witnesses partial anonymity.
The inquiry ruled that soldiers who admitted firing live rounds on Bloody Sunday would be required only to reveal their surnames during public hearings. There would also be no restriction on the publication of the names of military witnesses whose names appeared in the transcripts of the original inquiry, conducted by Lord Widgery in 1972.
The inquiry's appeal will be based on the argument against granting automatic anonymity that its lawyers presented to the High Court during the Judicial Review hearing.
The inquiry asserted that the soldiers' need to establish anonymity - because they feared for their safety and for the safety of their families - did not outweigh its duty to achieve public confidence in its investigation of the events of Bloody Sunday.
The decision not to grant automatic anonymity, the inquiry maintained, would be open to review during the course of public hearings.
The High Court concluded last week that the inquiry's judgment in May was "flawed" because it failed to give precedence to the soldiers' human rights. Lawyers acting for the soldiers charged the inquiry with attaching "manifestly inappropriate and disproportionate weight to its view of its public investigative function".