The people’s right to know what government is doing is being maintained and perhaps strengthened in New Hampshire thanks to vigilant press and civilians, and courts that understand this constitutional imperative.

Two cases decided last week were particularly encouraging. In one, a judge let police know that this is not a police state. In the other, the state Supreme Court unanimously reiterated what should be obvious: The public has a right to know where the public’s money goes.

The fact that both issues had to go to court is as troubling as the outcomes are comforting.

Weare police stopped a man (why they made this “traffic stop” remains unclear) and then released him without charge. But months later, they arrested and charged him with taping the encounter without the officer’s “permission.”

No offense to the Weare police, but that is scary, Orwellian stuff. District Judge Edward Tenney ruled that the citizen had a First Amendment right to record a public official engaged in public duties. As a Union Leader editorial on Friday noted, “All police departments should incorporate this ruling into their training right away. Let’s not have any more of this nonsense of charging citizens for trying to hold public servants accountable.”

Holding public servants accountable was the reason for our newspaper going to court in the second case.

The New Hampshire Retirement System insisted, against all common sense, that the public is not entitled to know which of its retired state workers and officials are paid what from the publicly supported pension funds.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Gary E. Hicks made short work of that argument.

“The public has an interest both in knowing how public funds are spent and in uncovering corruption and error in the administration of NHRS,” Hicks wrote in an opinion joined by the entire court.

Grasping at straws, the retirement system had even claimed that elderly pensioners would be victimized by flimflam artists and driveway pavers if we were to publish the names and pensions for top state retirees.

The Union Leader and its readers were ably represented in our case by Atty. Kathleen C. Sullivan of Malloy and Sullivan. In an earlier case, the Portsmouth Herald went to bat for readers when the State of New Hampshire insisted that laws relating to driver privacy shielded State Police in pursuit of their public duties in public vehicles.

The Herald, and the public, won that case, too, and the Herald will be honored this Thursday night by Vice President Joe Biden and the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications’ First Amendment Award. The event is open to the public. Tickets are available through the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. Showing support for the First Amendment is never a bad thing to do.