It took the Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf, three minutes to deliver the Court of Appeal's unanimous ruling yesterday.
Upholding the anonymity of 17 members of the Parachute Regiment and other soldiers who fired live rounds on Bloody Sunday when they are called to give evidence to the Bloody Sunday Tribunal of Inquiry, he said: "Examining the facts as a whole, we do not consider that any decision was possible other than to grant anonymity to the soldiers. This appeal is dismissed."
Immediately after the decision was read out in court 71, a spokesman for the tribunal announced that it accepted the ruling and would not appeal to the House of Lords. The tribunal had launched the appeal against the High Court's two-to-one majority ruling last month that the soldiers should retain their anonymity.
The High Court had ruled that the tribunal did not give sufficient weight to the fundamental human rights of the soldiers when it decided in May not to grant them automatic anonymity.
In their 21-page ruling, Lord Woolf, sitting with Lord Justice Robert Walker and Lord Justice Tuckey, rejected the tribunal's assertion that not to reveal the identity of the soldiers would make "particularly significant inroads on the public nature of the inquiry".
In fact, the tribunal seemed to have "lost sight" of the fact that the inroads on openness in allowing the soldiers to use letters instead of names, was limited.
Evidence would still be given in public, the ruling concluded, with the soldiers being observed while giving their evidence.
Furthermore, the tribunal would know the names of the soldiers and could investigate their credibility, and senior officers in charge and controlling events on Bloody Sunday would be named.
Crucially, the judgment pointed out that "the ability for the tribunal to reach the truth was, as the tribunal acknowledged, not going to be undermined".
The judges also agreed with a Ministry of Defence assessment that the soldiers faced a significant terrorist threat if they were identified by the tribunal. If the tribunal could properly perform its duty of finding the truth if the soldiers were not named, the judges said, from the soldiers' point of view, what was the justification in increasing the risk they were subjected to by denying them anonymity?
Turning to the concerns of the victims' families and the perception of the inquiry as a fair and public investigation of the facts, the judges criticised the tribunal's concentration on the issue of anonymity.
While the ruling noted that the tribunal was mindful of the risk to the soldiers, the judges said "they do not seem to have paid sufficient attention to the fact that to deny the soldiers' anonymity would certainly affect their perception of the fairness of the inquiry".
The requirement of fairness to the soldiers and their families was important, but it was judged that the harm of concealing the soldiers' names from the families of the dead and wounded "is objectively of no great significance. To the soldiers and their families it is of great significance . . .
"Some of their families do not even know they were involved in Bloody Sunday. For them to find themselves in a situation where it is accepted that they have reasonable grounds for being in fear of their safety, 27 years after the events, will clearly be immensely wrong."
The judges also pointed out that since many of the families had indicated they knew the identities of the soldiers, "it is difficult to understand why they should object to the soldiers not being named".
Moreover, the tribunal should have attached more weight to the "Widgery assurance" - an assurance given by Lord Widgery during his 1972 inquiry that the soldiers' anonymity was permanent.
The more time that elapsed without the soldiers' expectation of anonymity being contradicted, greater significance became attached to the assurance.
The tribunal had argued that since 1972 no serious incidents had occurred involving attacks or reprisals against the soldiers, but in their ruling the judges rejected this consideration.
"It is inevitable that the holding of the tribunal, with soldiers giving evidence, will rekindle the flames of anger which have been smouldering for so long."
The tribunal's public hearings will begin at the Guildhall in Derry next March. However, the tribunal has yet to decide whether all the soldiers asked to give evidence will be called to Derry or will be allowed to give evidence at other locations.