The Hawaii Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments about whether the names of Honolulu Police Department officers suspended for serious offenses should be made public — and whether the decision to release or withhold the names ultimately rests with the courts or Legislature.

The arguments center around a challenge by the police officers union — the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers — to an initially successful lawsuit by the online news organization Civil Beat to get the names of a dozen HPD officers who had been suspended for at least 20 days between 2003 and 2012 for offenses that included hit-and-run accidents, obstruction and assault. One unidentified officer was suspended for 626 days for hindering an unspecified federal investigation.

In February 2014, Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto ordered HPD to release the officers’ disciplinary records under the state’s public-records act. Sakamoto based his ruling, in part, on a 1996 decision by the state Supreme Court in favor of the Society of Professional Journalists’ University of Hawaii student chapter over SHOPO in a previous case involving disclosure of the names of officers who had been suspended or fired.

SHOPO successfully lobbied the Legislature in 1995 to amend the state’s Uniform Information Practices Act to recognize a “significant privacy interest” regarding the disciplinary records of police officers but not other government employees.

Since Sakamoto’s ruling, the country has been embroiled in a debate about police officer conduct in places from Baltimore to Texas to South Carolina.

R. Brian Black, attorney for Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, told the justices Thursday that “police officers are given a special trust” and that releasing the names of officers suspended for 20 days or more will hold “police departments accountable.”

SHOPO attorney Keani Alapa argued that releasing the names of suspended Honolulu officers serves no public interest other than “to sell newspapers.”

Reminded by Associate Justice Richard Pollack that Civil Beat is an online media organization, Alapa corrected himself and said that Civil Beat’s intent is “to sell subscriptions.”

Alapa said there is no need to change “the law just because Civil Beat disagrees with it.”

“What’s the great public interest in having the identities disclosed? … It doesn’t tell the public how government operates,” Alapa said.

Many of the questions from the justices focused on whether there should be a “balancing act” between releasing or blocking the names of suspended officers — and whether lawmakers or judges should do the balancing.

HPD filed a notice with the court that it has no position on SHOPO’s appeal of Sakamoto’s ruling.