The Court refused pseudonym orders for plaintiffs seeking to restrain IBAC from transmitting a special report to Parliament, holding that where substantial information about the investigation was already in the public domain and significant speculation about the plaintiffs' identities was already occurring, pseudonym orders would provide no material protection and were not justified as necessary to avoid prejudice to the administration of justice. The Court granted closed court and confidential file orders based on the IBAC Act s 166 restrictions on disclosure of special report contents, but held that the additional step of pseudonymising the plaintiffs required cogent proof of necessity beyond mere belief in potential reputational harm from speculation. An interim pseudonym order was granted pending appeal to avoid rendering the appeal nugatory.
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