The wheels of justice may turn slowly, but they turn.

One year after the state Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Hawaii police departments can refuse to disclose the names and disciplinary records of cops suspended for serious misconduct, the high court ruled Thursday that police don’t have an absolute right of confidentiality.

The court referred the matter back to a lower court, where a judge will now look at 12 Honolulu Police Department misconduct files at issue in the case brought by Honolulu Civil Beat and the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest and determine whether the public interest outweighs any claim to privacy.

Circuit Court Judge Karl Sakamoto ruled two years ago that police have no right to privacy where matters of misconduct are involved. The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers or SHOPO, the state police union, appealed Sakamoto’s ruling to the Supreme Court, which now has vacated that decision and directed Sakamoto to weigh, case-by-case, public interest vs. privacy.

The high court didn’t rule conclusively in Civil Beat’s favor; in fact, it held that “police officers have a significant privacy interest in their disciplinary suspension records.”

“However … this privacy interest does not absolutely preclude disclosure, and must still be weighed against the public’s interest in the information,” wrote Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald in the majority opinion. Recktenwald later painstakingly substantiated that judgment with a clear-eyed look at statutory language, legislative intent and the court’s 1996 SHOPO vs. SPJ ruling, in which the University of Hawaii Society of Professional Journalists successfully sought disciplinary records from HPD.

The fact that the court ruled that the blanket claim of confidentiality is unacceptable represents a small but important step toward a level of accountability found in at least 39 other states around the country — one that the police union has worked hard to avoid for the past 15 years.

Recktenwald wrote that public oversight ensures police are held accountable for their actions and media access to disciplinary records “is one of the primary channels through which such public oversight can operate.”

“The more egregious the misconduct, and the more closely connected to the officer’s performance of his or her duties as an officer, the more compelling this public interest,” wrote the chief justice.

It should be noted that the City of Honolulu and HPD were prepared to comply with Sakamoto’s 2014 ruing, without appeal; SHOPO challenged the decision.

Recktenwald and justices Jeffrey Crabtree, Paula Nakayama and Michael Wilson further provided direction (Justice Richard Pollack wrote a concurring opinion) on what information they expect to be redacted from any such records disclosure — data such as home addresses and personal telephone numbers of officers, as well as Social Security numbers, bank information and driver license numbers. Likewise, any identifying information related to crime victims.

That would leave significant and important detail in any of these 12 cases in which the Circuit Court determines the public’s interest trumps any personal privacy interest invoked by officers or the union.

The cases were identified during a 2013 investigation by Civil Beat that sought records for officers suspended in any given incident for at least 20 days during the previous decade. They involved “falsifying police reports, use of malicious force, willfully injuring another employee, fabricating facts regarding probable cause, hindering investigations, and misappropriating police funds,” as Recktenwald noted.

HPD declined to make the records available under the state’s Uniform Information Practices Act.

The police union argued last year that a 1995 amendment to that act always prevents the disclosure of misconduct records unless the officer has been discharged, even in such matters as these.

It should be noted that the City of Honolulu and HPD were prepared to comply with Sakamoto’s 2014 ruing, without appeal; SHOPO challenged the decision. Remember that next time you wonder who one of the officers was in the minimalist annual report to the Legislature that describes outrageous misconduct cases as vaguely as possible while disclosing no names of the guilty parties.

This is far from over. Whatever ruling Sakamoto renders will be subject to appeal, so reaching a final decision in this matter may not happen for some time.

But we appreciate the direction in which this matter is moving. The wheels of justice are turning toward a future in which disclosure of serious police officer misconduct is a more clearly resolved matter, one in which the public’s right to know is given the consideration and weight that it deserves.