In a stunning turnabout, the U.S. Supreme Court on the final day of its term agreed to review a case it had rejected in April. The action was one of the most consequential of the term, involving as it did a determination by the justices to reject the administration’s advice and to decide the legality of its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including the denial of habeas corpus.

Who on the court was responsible for the switch wasn’t revealed. The affirmative votes of at least four justices ordinarily are required for the court to take a case. The bar was higher in this instance because it was a request for rehearing, which requires at least five justices to concur. Neither the number of justices who voted to rehear the two detainee cases at issue nor the names of the justices were disclosed. When I asked the Supreme Court’s press office why the secrecy, a spokesman said it’s “just the way the court operates.”

Indeed it is. For the most part, the critical decisions on which cases the court selects for review are hidden from view. The exceptions are few and far between. One occurred in these very cases in April when three justices – David Souter, Ruth Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer – volunteered then that they favored granting certiorari (review) because the cases raised questions that “deserve this court’s immediate attention,” and two other justices – John Stevens and Anthony Kennedy – stated they would continue to monitor the detainee issue. A couple of months later, however, it was back to business as usual at the court, with how the justices voted again under wraps.

As is its custom, the press made no fuss about the non-disclosure. It should make an issue generally about the secrecy that surrounds which cases the court accepts. Decisions about its docket are among the most significant the court makes, and who votes how ought to be regarded as vital public business as open to the public as the opinions the court issues.

It’s not a matter of simply satisfying curiosity. Members of the Supreme Court are as subject to conflicts of interests as are other government officials. If justices participate in the all-important decision to grant review to litigation in which, say, they have financial interests, there is no way to know they participated without disclosure.

Years ago I wondered why justices recuse (disqualify) themselves from cases, some much more than others. This is another part of the court’s work shrouded in secrecy, because almost never do justices explain recusals. I wrote to each justice asking for an explanation of the secrecy and received informative replies from six, including then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The answers added up to a less-then-persuasive case for secrecy, relying heavily as they did on “custom”, “tradition” and not wanting to appear holier than a colleague.

The point is that court secrecy is not necessarily grounded in sound justifications. The Supreme Court is an immensely potent institution with power of life and death over individuals and the ability to make or break corporations. That makes it all the more important for the press to insist that the court operate as much in the public eye as possible.

I am reasonably sure that the justices responded to my letter because the Des Moines Register at that time caught the court’s attention be being a first-class pest about how the financial holdings of some justices were affecting the court’s work. The court even adopted a rule requiring litigants to list all subsidiaries in which they have an interest that suggests it was aware of what the Register had disclosed. The Supreme Court, I learned, does listen.

All the more reason for the press to be aggressive in attacking mindless secrecy in the Supreme Court, as elsewhere. My nomination for attention is the voting on the court’s docket. A good place to start is a demand by the press to know how the justices voted on whether to take the detainee cases.