The Scottish edition of the Daily Mail and later editions of the Scotsman newspapers have both named the senior minister.

The BBC's legal affairs correspondent, Joshua Rosenburg, discusses the naming of the minister (Dur: 3'-27")

The Scottish Daily Mail said its decision to name the minister follows "his own public statement that he wishes the secrecy surrounding his identity to be lifted."

It added that the minister was also named and pictured in a French newspaper, France-Soir, "which is readily available at leading newsagents in London."

France-Soir has devoted two full columns to the story and criticised the witholding of his identity as "typical British hypocrisy".

The Daily Mail added that six million users of the Internet in Britain can access the minister's name in seconds.

High Court injunction

The Scotsman's story naming the father of the 17-year-old boy facing allegations of selling cannabis to an undercover Mirror reporter was not printed in the newspaper's first edition.

Executives explained that early copies of the newspaper are sold in London and elsewhere in England and are subject to the ban on the media identifying the minister.

On Tuesday, Attorney General John Morris obtained an injunction in the High Court in London only hours before the Sun newspaper was to name the minister, which would lead to the identity of his son.

In England, the law bans the identifying of alleged offenders under the age of 18.

But the Scottish Daily Mail argues that in Scots law, a person involved in criminal proceedings is considered an adult from the age of 16 "and therefore can be legally identified."

The Scotsman appears to have taken steps to ensure the minister's identity does not appear in its online edition, which could breach the injunction because it is accessible from England and Wales where the order is in force.

'End the farce'

The Scotsman, in a front page leader headlined "Named in the public interest", says it took the decision "to end the farce that was fast becoming a disgrace to our public life, our freedom of speech and our democracy."

It goes on: "We do not do this out of any sense of mischief but because what started out as a reasonably minor family difficulty has turned into a major argument over a point of principle.

"This is an argument over what the British public is and is not allowed to know about a matter of public interest - and who decides."

In its main story, it adds: "The Scotsman today takes the radical step to identify the minister because it believes the public interest in naming him now outweighs the need to preserve his 17-year-old son's anonymity."

Information on Internet

In its leader, the Scottish Daily Mail said the newspaper was bound neither by the terms of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 nor the High Court injunction granted at the request of the Attorney General.

"We have decided to end the farce so that our readers can at least share the information already known to the entire British media, every MP, every Whitehall civil servant, millions of people overseas and anyone who cares to look it up on the Internet.