Another Rhode Island judge has forgotten whose government this is. It belongs to the people, not to the public officials.

Public records must be made public, or we will no longer have a just and accountable government that the citizens ultimately control through fair and free elections.

It was disappointing this week to see a Superior Court judge, Melissa Long, rule that the Pawtucket Police Department is not required to release reports of police officer misconduct generated by its Internal Affairs Division, pending further hearings.

Ms. Long is the former deputy secretary of state, under Nellie Gorbea, whose office last year decided to deny the public access to information in digital form that was previously available. That information had helped the public determine whether elections were being properly overseen.

It is alarming to find this animosity to public disclosure evidently spreading in Rhode Island. Only last April, Ms. Long’s colleague, Superior Court Judge Netti Vogel, ordered reporters not to contact “my jurors” after a trial — a blatant violation of the First Amendment. After Ms. Vogel squandered $50,000 of taxpayer money in legal fees, a federal judge noted that she was in the wrong, and he promised that she would not repeat the mistake again.

This week, Judge Long ruled against the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, which brought a lawsuit on behalf of Dimitri Lyssikatos, a member of the Rhode Island Accountability Project.

Mr. Lyssikatos sought redacted records from the Pawtucket Police Department of internal investigations of the conduct of its officers. The police refused to provide records of investigations that had been generated inside the department, acting on a bizarre 2017 advisory opinion by then-Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, no friend of public disclosure. The police added that such cases were of “negligible” public interest.

To the contrary, police misconduct is of great public interest. Police are necessarily given immense power — including the power to apprehend people or even shoot them dead. But that power must be accompanied by openness and accountability, lest those wielding it be tempted to abuse it.

Many of the best and brightest in law enforcement in Rhode Island understand this well, and strive to be open with members of the public, whom they regard as their ally in fighting crime and defending their very difficult work, not their adversary.

Unfortunately, Judge Long failed to concur with two Rhode Island Supreme Court rulings that the public is entitled to final reports of investigations of police misconduct. Let us hope this ruling is aggressively challenged. Members of the public should not be subjected to delays or forced to hire lawyers every time they want to find out about the resolution, in redacted form, of such investigations.

As a result of the ruling, ACLU Executive Steven Brown noted, “it may be months or years before the public gets to look at these important public records.” He added it was “unfortunate” that the “decision fails to uphold the spirit of transparency in government that APRA was designed to promote.”

Let us hope that other judges in Rhode Island will act to restore the primacy of transparency and openness in our system of self-government.