CHICAGO (AP) – Cook County judges have hidden hundreds of court files from public view since 2000, some without reason or proper justification, according to a published report Sunday.

Several of the sealed files involved well-known Chicago residents and institutions, including a chef, businessmen, the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Chicago Cubs, according to a story in Sunday editions of the Chicago Tribune (trib.in/QNBQlJ).

The newspaper's findings run contrary to Illinois case law, which says public documents shouldn't be sealed. In several cases, judges failed to provide their rationale for sealing files and hid entire files instead of removing sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, that would have otherwise made the files public.