A compliance monitor's report filed in connection with a Justice Department's deferred prosecution case against HSBC Bank must be unsealed, a federal judge has ruled.

Granting a pro se application, Eastern District Judge John Gleeson on Thursday said the report was “a judicial record, and that the public has a First Amendment right” to see it. He rejected arguments by the U.S. Department of Justice and the bank that the report stay out of the public domain.

In U.S. v. HSBC Bank, 12-cr-763, Gleeson later added “because of the historical practice of allowing public access to documents filed in connection with important criminal proceedings, and because the interests of transparency, accountability, and credibility remind me of the logic of democratic monitoring of judicial processes, I find that the First Amendment right of access attaches to the Monitor's Report.”