UK judge rules in favor of Meghan Markle

 AFP -A London judge has ruled in favor of the Duchess of Sussex, in her lawsuit for violation of privacy against a British tabloid newspaper for publishing a letter she wrote to her father with whom she has a strained relationship.

London High Court Judge Mark Warby ruled that the Duchess, former American actress Meghan Markle, “had a reasonable expectation that the content of the letter would remain private.”

The Mail on Sunday articles “interfered with that expectation” and are illegal, he ruled.

Trying to avoid a highly media process, Meghan’s lawyers had asked the magistrate to issue a “summary judgment”, a procedure that in Anglo-Saxon law allows a case to be resolved without trial.

Warby considered “however, that there should be a trial limited to issues related to copyright ownership”, another of the charges denounced by the Duchess, and set a new hearing for March 2, so it was may considered only a half victory.

“For those publications, it is a game. For me and so many others, it is true life, true relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they caused and continue to cause is profound ”, reacted the Duchess, who denounces“ inhumane practices ”.

“You can’t take someone’s private life and exploit it … in a shameful way for two years,” she added.

Meghan, 39, took legal action against the Associated Newspapers group, editor of the Daily Mail newspaper, its Sunday version Mail on Sunday and the

The letter was written in August 2018, a few months after Meghan married Prince Harry, grandson of Elizabeth II, and in it asked her father to stop talking to the press and making false claims about her in the interviews.

Hie attorney Justin Rushbrooke had argued during previews that the letter was “patently private” and that a full trial was not necessary.

“It is a very big victory for the Duchess of Sussex” who “can say  Mail Online website, for publishing excerpts from a letter sent to the controversial 76-year-old Thomas Markle.that she was right, that the letter was private and never had to be published,” commented Mark Stephens, a lawyer specialized in media, to AFP .

But lawyers for Associated Newspapers argued that it was necessary to call witnesses to “shed light” on whether Meghan planned to have the letter made public as part of a “media strategy.”

And they suggested that former members of the Sussex Duke and Duchess communication team could testify, making public potentially compromising details about the lives of the prince and his wife, the first commoner member of the British royal family to never hide feeling uncomfortable amid the rigors of protocol of the British monarchy.

“The letter did not say that she loved me . She didn’t even ask how I was doing. She did not show concern that I had suffered a heart attack and did not ask questions about my health,”said Thomas Markle in a written statement to the judge in late January.

“It actually signaled the end of our relationship,” he said, giving a preview of what could happen if the two were to face a trial in London.

Meghan’s lawyers have denied that she intended to make the letter public at any time, or that she collaborated with the authors of the biography “Finding Freedom” that recounts the couple’s resounding departure from the British monarchy and which also contained partial excerpts from the letter.

Meghan and Harry left their royal duties in March of last year and now live in California.

They have taken a series of legal actions against the media alleging invasion of privacy, including for the photos of their son Archie taken by the paparazzi.

This has drawn criticism, as at the same time the couple are launching high-profile projects, such as a Spotify podcast in which their son made a brief appearance.

Prince Harry this month accepted compensation from Associated Newspapers for false accusations that he had not maintained contact with the Royal Marines after leaving the UK.