Today the High Court in London will hear the case that has been brought by 17 members of the Parachute Regiment, challenging the decision of the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday that there should be no blanket anonymity for soldiers giving evidence to the tribunal.
This case could run and run, causing problems for the peace process all along the way. Whichever side loses today will almost certainly appeal, right up to the House of Lords if necessary. The tribunal is a statutory inquiry set up by the British government, while the soldiers' case is funded by the Ministry of Defence.
Neither side seems prepared to give way. Solicitors representing families of the victims of Bloody Sunday fear that this will, at the least, lead to long delays in the tribunal's hearings and could even precipitate its collapse.
The issue of the soldiers' anonymity has been the subject of an extraordinary political and media campaign in Britain. This has been spearheaded by the Daily Mail with the slogan, "Don't Betray the Paras". The Daily Telegraph has played an enthusiastic supporting role, with editorials describing Lord Saville's inquiry as "a gesture of appeasement to the IRA", and so on.
Between them they have mustered the support of William Hague, the Conservative Party leader, Tom King, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, ditto, as well as assorted generals. Other signatories to the Daily Mail's petition include Martin Bell MP, Auberon Waugh, Jeffrey Archer, Lord Tebbitt and Dame Vera Lynn.
Lieut. Col Derek Wilford, who commanded the Paras in Derry on Bloody Sunday, has said he will go to prison rather than co-operate with the Saville Inquiry, if the soldiers' demand for blanket anonymity is not granted.
The pressure has been raised on Tony Blair by making the point that the British government expects members of the Parachute Regiment to put their lives on the line in Kosovo, while at the same time ratting on those who defended peace in Northern Ireland.
Downing Street insists that the Prime Minister cannot interfere with the working of the tribunal and that any decision on anonymity is a matter for the courts. But, according the Daily Telegraph, the Defence Secretary, George Robertson, believes that anonymity should be granted. The Ministry of Defence is paying the soldiers' legal fees, saying that it has "a duty of care" to its personnel. The new inquiry was announced by Tony Blair in January last year. The British Prime Minister said that "compelling new evidence" had persuaded him that there should be a new investigation to evaluate the findings of the late Lord Chief Justice Widgery's tribunal.
The decision was widely welcomed in Ireland and abroad as a serious attempt to discover the truth about what happened in one of the worst episodes of the present troubles, when 13 innocent civil rights marchers were killed by British troops.
It was also seen as integral to the new spirit of reconciliation between Ireland and Britain which, it was hoped, would flower with the peace process.
The grief and the anger caused by Bloody Sunday have been a festering wound in the psyche of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland for more than 25 years. The refusal of successive British governments to confront this in an honest way was one of the factors which contributed immeasurably to support for the IRA.
So it was a cause of real satisfaction when Lord Saville of Newdigate, a respected appeal judge, was appointed to chair a new inquiry. There was also praise for the choice of two distinguished Commonwealth judges, Sir Edward Somers of New Zealand and William Hoyt, a former Chief Justice of New Brunswick in Canada, to sit alongside him.
From the moment he arrived in Derry, Lord Saville made it clear that he wanted the structures and proceedings of the tribunal to be as transparent and accessible to ordinary members of the public as possible.
So far, over 300 soldiers who were present in Derry on Bloody Sunday have provided statements to the inquiry. Seventeen members of the Parachute Regiment have been asked to give evidence. These soldiers have been guaranteed immunity from any prosecution that could arise from their evidence and this dispensation has been accepted by the families of the victims, albeit with some reluctance.
"Nobody is on trial" one of the relatives said. "What we want, after so many years, is to know what happened to our loved ones and why". It is the same cry of pain that we have heard in recent days from the families of the disappeared, the need to know the truth in order to be able, finally, to lay the past to rest.
Last month Lord Saville and his two colleagues ruled that there should be no general anonymity for witnesses, on the grounds that this would detract from "an open search" for truth. Such a tribunal, they said, must involve not only "the why, and also the who". There were other practical reasons for this decision. In 1972 the RUC's own inquiry into Bloody Sunday collapsed, largely because of "the abuse of anonymity" by soldiers involved in that day's events.
When he gave this ruling, Lord Saville also made it clear that any soldier who had "reasonable" fears for his safety was entitled to make a "special reasons application" for anonymity and that such a request would receive a sympathetic hearing. Three members of the RUC have already been granted anonymity on such grounds: e.g., that members of the community where they live do not necessarily know that they are policemen.
Last weekend Lord Saville gave an interview to the Daily Mail, in which he explained how he and his colleagues had arrived at their decision and why it should not be reversed. The statute under which the inquiry had been set up lays down that it should be heard in public. He added, "I think there is a lot of interest in this inquiry, but it must be understood that a public inquiry has to be just that - public". There is already intense suspicion in Northern Ireland that this whole campaign is part of a wider political agenda led by media and political forces in Britain which are hostile to the Belfast Agreement. Supporters of the accord in both communities know that any serious blow to the credibility of the Saville Inquiry would be bound to damage, still further, public confidence in the peace process.
That is something which Northern Ireland does not need - or deserve - at a time when the political parties and the two prime ministers are about to enter another series of talks to try and secure the future of the Good Friday agreement.