Lawyers
for UK's Meghan seek to stop privacy case going
to trial
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[January 19, 2021]
By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -
Lawyers for Meghan, Britain's Duchess of Sussex,
asked a London judge on Tuesday to rule in her
favour in a privacy case against a tabloid
newspaper without a trial, arguing the
publication has no prospect of winning. |
Meghan, 39, the wife of Queen
Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry, is suing
Associated Newspapers after its Mail on Sunday
printed extracts of a handwritten letter she
sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in
August 2018.
She is seeking aggravated damages, saying the
publication of the letter was a misuse of
private information and breached her copyright.
The paper has said the duchess was willing for
other private matters to become public if it
suited her interests, and it was justified in
publishing parts of the letter in response to
interviews her anonymous friends had given to
the U.S. magazine People, and because of her
royal status.
At the start of a two-day hearing at London's
High Court, Meghan's lawyer, Justin Rushbrooke,
said judge Mark Warby should give a summary
judgment in favour of the former U.S. actress as
the paper's arguments had "no reasonable
grounds" of success and did not stand up to
scrutiny.
He said the Mail on Sunday had broken the code
of conduct that British newspapers worked by,
and the case raised "a disturbing question"
about who controlled the contents of a private
letter.
"Is it the writer of the letter or the editor of
the Mail on Sunday?" Rushbrooke said.
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"There can only be one answer
to that question and the answer would be the
same irrespective of whether the write was a
duchess or any other citizen. And the answer is
it is not the editor of the Mail on Sunday."
He said the decision to publish the letter was
an assault on "her private life, her family life
and her correspondence". In documents submitted
to the court, her legal team described the
paper's defence as "a case of smoke and
mirrors".
In its written argument submitted to the court,
the Mail on Sunday said Meghan had expected the
letter's contents to become public, and, even if
she had a privacy right, it was outweighed by
the paper's freedom of expression rights.
"This case is wholly unsuitable for summary
judgment. There is uncertainty as to a number of
significant factual matters which can, and
should, be investigated at trial when the court
will have the full picture in terms of
disclosure and evidence," the paper's legal team
said.
The trial was due to start last week but was
delayed until late 2021 because of a
"confidential" reason.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by William
James and Alex Richardson)
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