The Star intends to launch a new court challenge to unseal Project Traveller search warrants, after a regional senior justice told court staff to hand over documents that were previously kept secret.

Court staff released three new orders sealing search warrants Tuesday. All of the addresses have been removed, making it impossible to know whether the orders cover all 40 warrants executed during the Toronto gang sweep.

“It is what we were asking for, so we’re pleased that we’ve now gotten these orders,” said the Star’s lawyer, Ryder Gilliland.

“The fact that it took a month to get them, when they were sitting in a court file, suggests that the current system doesn’t work as efficiently as it should.”

Following the June 13 raids, the Star obtained one order sealing a search warrant and launched an application to unseal it. The paper has argued that potential links to Mayor Rob Ford make the information in the public interest.

But its efforts to obtain more documents related to Project Traveller have been obstructed by a court policy that requires members of the public to know both the address and date of execution in order to request a search warrant.

After the Star wrote to the Ontario Court of Justice last week asking for help, it received a written response Tuesday from Faith Finnestad, the Toronto Regional Senior Justice with the Ontario Court of Justice.

“I have advised Court Services Division that upon a request for ‘Project Traveller sealing orders,’ they should release all of these orders, with any identifying information with respect to the locations to be searched redacted,” she wrote.

Finnestad wrote that court staff had told her there were four sealing orders related to Project Traveller. One of the orders is the one the Star obtained last month, with the 12 addresses now removed.

Peter Jacobsen, lawyer for other media outlets in the initial court challenge, said there is no reason to redact addresses after warrants have been executed. The execution period on all but one of the sealing orders ended June 14.

He added that there may be more documents that court staff are unaware of. Often, sealing orders and search warrants are filed in enclosed envelopes that only have the judge’s name and date written on them.

“To me, it’s preposterous that we’re in a situation where we have an open court system, but we can’t even find out if there are sealing orders without writing to a senior judge.”

Project Traveller has highlighted the routine practice of sealing search warrants, despite a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that required police to provide specific evidence that releasing a warrant would compromise an investigation.

Paul Schabas, the Star’s lawyer in the 2005 case, said there are legitimate reasons to redact information, such as the risk of identifying an informant. However, he said the majority of judges were issuing “blanket sealing orders.”

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“Not enough consideration is given to the fact that any sealing order is a breach of the Charter principle of openness,” he said.

“Courts should be easy to scrutinize, not a labyrinth.”