As we discussed, Downing Street actually gave a comment on the Duchess of Sussex’s second legal victory. Downing Street means Boris Johnson, although it was just BoJo’s spokesperson who commented, which is still pretty bonkers. Meghan won her summary judgment in February because the case was cut-and-dry. The Mail lost their appeal last week because even after Kensington Palace (Prince William and Jason Knauf) turned over evidence to damage Meghan, the issues of the case were still cut-and-dry: the Mail could not prove that Meghan wrote her letter to her father with the intention of it becoming public. That’s it in a nutshell. The Mail could also not prove that it was in the public’s interest to publish much of Meghan’s letter to her father where all she was doing was talking about how toxic and gross he is. That’s not a matter of state. That’s not a matter of corruption or malfeasance. So… true story, the British peeps are so salty about Meghan winning again, they’re going to CHANGE THE LAW.
Dominic Raab has said he wants to “correct” the drift towards the principle of free speech being outweighed by protection of privacy. The justice secretary’s intervention comes just days after Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, won an appeal court battle over a newspaper’s publication of extracts of a letter to her father. Court of appeal judges ruled that the duchess had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the contents of the letter which were “personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest”.
But critics have accused the courts of creating extensive privacy rights which were never legislated for in parliament, by their far-reaching interpretation of the right to private and family life enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights and translated into UK law through the Human Rights Act.
Speaking to Times Radio on Sunday, Mr Raab did not directly reference the duchess’s case, but made clear he believes the balance has slipped too far in favour of the ability of rich individuals to protect their secrets. He indicated that his planned overhaul of the Human Rights Act could shift Britain away from “continental-style privacy laws” developed by judges rather than parliament.
“We do in this country have a tradition which emphasises and prioritises free speech and open debate,” said the deputy prime minister. “I think that’s something which is pro freedom that we’ll look at.”
Citing British philosophers John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin, Mr Raab said: “In the politics of this country, we’ve had a heavier emphasis on free speech, transparency, accountability for politicians, for people in positions of influence. We don’t have the continental-style privacy law protections. If we were going to go down that route, it should have been decided by elected politicians.” He added: “I think that’s a good example of the kind of balance that we can strike with our own home-grown approach to this, rather than the over-reliance on a continental model, which is effectively what the Human Rights Act has left us with. What I want to see is stronger respect for the democratic prerogatives of parliament to legislate in those areas.
“So it’s about getting the balance right. But certainly, I think the drift towards continental-style privacy laws, innovated in the courtroom not by elected lawmakers in the House of Commons, is something that we can and should correct.”
Come on, it’s a little bit funny. They were bested by a clever American woman of color and they’re truly going to change their laws so it never happens again!! It’s pathetic, yes, but it’s also hilarious. It’s like no one in the entire Tory/royal establishment understands how this could splash back on them in a million different ways. You know who else bullied the British press, arguing human rights and privacy? Prince William. He made those arguments when he was trying to keep publications from reporting on his affair with Rose Hanbury. Meghan has these short-sighted morons so worked up, they’re going to rewrite their laws to “punish” Meghan and they’ll end up hurting themselves even more.
The rule of law is the last defence against unaccountable political power, as we have seen during Brexit and the Coronavirus pandemic. And that's exactly why the Johnson Government is coming next for judicial review and the Human Rights Act. None of this is normal. pic.twitter.com/dM5kMTANMH
— Hardeep Matharu (@Hardeep_Matharu) December 5, 2021
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, NYT.
The British Government has never complained about the law when other Royals have sued the press and won. What’s the difference in this case?
Duchessing while black.
Truth. They should probably remember their extra locked up safe of royal wills, from long dead royals. And then ask the current monarch if she agrees. Good Lord, they are so enmeshed with the royal family, and someone should probably point out that they are cutting off their nose, to spite their black Madame Duchess.
The other royals were blenda white.
If they actually go for these changes, I hope it’s coming back to bite the tories and their allies (including the RF) in the rear end. Bojo and his buddies are the ones with most skeletons in their closets, but they know they have friends who can silence the tabloides. They can just invite Rothermere for tea, and everything is good, right? Hopefully a change can can give the Guardian and more reliable press more freedom to report on their crimes.
Correcting the law WILL NOT HAPPEN. The tories have so much to hide that even superinjunctions are not enough. All this is bluster to appease the twice defeated billionaire owner of the daily fail.
Apologising to Meghan is going to bring the Daily Fail and 2 other institutions to their knees: this paper is a larger-than-life ‘phenomenon in the UK and over the years they have taken on a woc who had the temerity to ‘infiltrate the RF; now it is an open secret that the Daily Fail is working in tandem with the RF and 10 Downing street. Of course, the steps will be taken.We should not be surprised at all.
I believe even the Fail noted that if the laws were to change, it would have no effect on Meghan. So this is literally a case of cut off your own nose to spite your face.
Raab-id is the idiot who was Brexit minister a while ago and after visiting Dover he said “OMG it’s a port” – he’s one of the worst in a Parliament made by the worst.
Oh. This is very interesting. This part isn’t actually about Meghan, although they’ll use her as a scapegoat to push this through, if they can get away with it. It’s crafty. I’ll give them that.
I’m glad she never became a British citizen and I hope she never steps foot on that island again.
Not even when their Queen dies. Harry should go alone and leave meghan and the kids in the safety of montecito, do his thing, back home in the US and also never ever goes back afterwards. The brf has done the most. If that was me in Harry’s shoes I would never ever go back after the funeral. You cannot treat my spouse and children like that and get away with it.
Watch them change laws (unlikely, I think this is all for clicks and invisible contract chain yanking), and then blame Meghan down the line when everyone’s (anyone with any name recognition anyway) business is on the front page with impunity. “If Meghan hadn’t sued and won we would have never retaliated by changing the laws, which are biting us all in the ass!”
I wonder how Boris (and William and Kate and Charles and and and) will feel when the Fail prints THEIR private letters?
Yeah, Charles didn’t even want a letter written to another nation published. How’s PwT going to stop reports about his Rose trimmings and other shenanigans when he can’t use the Human Rights acts laws? Tea with the Rot?
They won’t change the law in the way the Fail is reporting the story. Most comments are drawing parallels with right wing dictators. Brexit means a review of the European Court legislation but there cannot be any fundamental change to the independence of the legal system. It has nothing to do with Meghan.
Does Will-di Amin remember that he claimed that the Rose Hanbury story violated his human rights (of privacy) accorded to him by the EU? No more protection for him under the EU, but he wants to erode the rights of private citizens to spite a woman who no longer lives in his country?
The law they change won’t apply to Meghan. They WILL however apply to George, Charlotte, and Louis. And Cain. And Unable.
Is there anyone with a functioning brain cell working in any of the royal palaces? Doesn’t Charles realize that this change of law could open up communications between him and Camilla that he doesn’t want in public? Surely Tampongate isn’t the worst thing out there. Maybe a change of law could apply to Philip’s 99 year will, if reporters got their hands on it. Or the Queen’s finances. The non-Sussex royals themselves aren’t big business. They are a bunch of ordinary numpties whose birth or marriage gives them the only relevance they would otherwise have. But royals scandals are huge, huge business, and the only business left after Sussexit. I don’t think that even Lord Rothemere or Rupert Murdoch’s loyalty to the RF is stronger than their business’s bottom lines. They willl need to feed the beast, and their biggest targets are the Cambridges. The Cambridges will be really juicy targets because they have positioned themselves so stupidly, as the wise @Arthistorian mentioned yesterday, as “the perfect couple.” Schadenfreude is tabloid’s raison d’etre, their religion, their communion rite with their audience. As Willian and Kate have never positioned themselves as charming, and have never ingratiated themselves with the public, and never had the love that Harry did, they are ripe for a fall. Satisfying in the same way as watching a Better-than-thou” (Richer than thou, skinnier than thou, more wellness-focued than thou) star like Gwyneth Paltrow face derision.
The Dolittles better start picking up the slack, pronto. They need to start working like their rent is 2 months past due.
Thank you for bringing up Philip’s will. That is absolutely the first thing that should be published if this law is changed. I am convinced that will contains proof that the RF had to pay Phil to stay married to QE.
@lanne, Your comments are always the best; deliciously spot on with superb analysis! The last sentence was pure gold.
My aunt had two sayings that fit to this situation,
1. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face knowing you still need to breathe.
2. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
I can’t wait to see what happens with this down the road. Let’s see how the Cambridges feel with Cannot’s nudes splashed across the front pages alongside pictures of Willnot with his latest side-piece.
The Spider letters would be a good example. It would be interesting to read those.
I know that some of the “Spider letters” were published in the Times of London in either 2015 or 2016. I read them. I came to the conclusion that those which were published showed the POW to be savvy and knowledgeable about ecology and the environment. There was no smoking gun. I suspect that they were preselected to make the POW seem like a wise, elderly botanist who cared deeply about the environment. The issue was that in the “Spider letters” Prince Charles spoke passionately about the subject violating the idea that the Royals are not meant to have opinions.
@ lanne, another dazzling analysis that you have brought to all of us! I always enjoy your spin on these situations that clearly are ill thought-out and always a knee-jerk reaction.
Have they forgotten the golden rule? The devil is in the details? In addition to the fabulous anecdotes that @ Angelica Schuyler pointed out?
They will be kicking themselves in the arse if they follow through with rewriting the laws. Murdoch will see fresh blood and will go after anything that he knows will sell papers, factual or not. Boris isn’t too clever is he. What an absolute disappointment of a PM he is!!
I am beginning to wondering how much longer he will be able to use 10 Downing Street as his address……
@Ianne
“Ordinary numpties”
I.am.dead.over.here.
Just.dead.
A perfect description. How are all their moves short-sighted despite such a long time horizon? How?
Yes! 100%
Critical thinking is clearly not their strong point.
The emphasis on “continental” is telling. It looks like the Tory government is pulling their trump card (pun intended) – the “Brexit fear-mongering” card to gain support. It’s the only card they have. Their poll numbers have plummeted.
Interestingly, it was this very same human rights act provision that William’s lawyers used to keep any whisper about his alleged relationship with Rose Hamburg out of the tabloids. So. William was so incandescent that he colluded with the tabloids to hurt Meghan is going to actually be more vulnerable to tabloids if they succeed with their efforts to roll back privacy rights. The BM colludes with the BRF but they will also happily expose them also because it makes them more dependent on the sycophantic coverage that the tabloids provide.
This sounds like “oh no, the laws we put in place to protect ourselves are now being used to protect people that we don’t want to be protected! Let’s change the laws so that no one is legally protected anymore, and then those of us who still want to be protected can go back to relying on our ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ to hide out affairs and money laundering.”
@ Amy Too, but do you think people like Murdoch will respect the “gentleman’s agreement” like the others? I don’t think so, but that’s my opinion. Murdoch is out to destroy anyone in his path, and Baldimort is no exception!!
He’d have to get something in return for covering up for William or others. It wouldn’t be like back in the 60s where the press would ignore your mistress—without getting anything specific in return beyond general polite press access—just because it could be embarrassing to your wife and unsettling to the public to know that Mr. Family Values was screwing around. They’re going to demand info and stories in exchange. Basically, I assume they’d keep operating under the invisible contract. The gentleman’s agreement is more about who they deign worth enough to even enter into the silent contract with. The BRF, sure. Meghan, absolutely not. Conservative white men in government, yes. Liberal women in government, no.
Amy Too, I am all the way with you. How are fully functioning adults unable to come to this conclusion on Salty Isle??
If they get rid of the human rights laws from the EU then it is a free for all on the affair story seeing as it’s the only legislation William’s lawyers relied on to stop discussion of the rose affair.
Also let’s get rid of super injunctions. The fact that the media cannot even mention that they exist for certain people is not the sign of a democracy. It is the rich hiding their mistakes from the general public.
Sounds like fascism to me
Same. Because I doubt this would come back on t(em, they’re planning on being in power forever, and using the courts to abuse detractors just like all tyrants.
The laws will only be changed back to protect human rights when /if they see that they are losing power.
Just like the conservatives in the U.S.
They’re not going to do a bloody thing. Because the Torys (and their backers) ARE the rich people who don’t want their secrets revealed.
The tabloid press is making a little noise and Boris’ ministers will harumph for them (like Gov. Lepetomane’s in Blazing Saddles), but in the end, they won’t change the law that protects them.
To me this says the Mail won’t file an appeal because they know the outcome will be the same. They just wanted to put Jasons text messages to use. So this is them stomping their feet and huffing and puffing through Bozo Johnson.
This is next-level absurdity.
I asked my mom why the insane hate for Meghan. She said: Jealousy. You can try to justify but it’s just jealousy.
It might seem controversial what I’m going to write. In the mind of a British person (The hater one), Meghan is a social climber who wants to tear down the monarchy.
To that: Why would she want that in the first place?
We can’t deny that there’s perks into marrying a person like Harry with influence and Meghan knew. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him. Marriage is just not something about love, it’s a contract of partnership in life.
I admire her hustle, it’s also not like she’s not doing anything. She brought light to some things I never knew exist in the first place like the Kitchen Community which was one of her first gigs as a Royal. You can’t compare her to a say Kardashian (I’ve heard some comparison somewhere)
The same could be said about Kate. But she didn’t do anything subsential or impactful that I’ve heard of.
Meghan hate comes from the fact that she is demonstratively, quantatively, better at Duchessing than Kate. She has done more meaningful work than Kate in 10 years. She’s a better public speaker, better at engaging the public, more intelligent, more compassionate, and more experienced. They hate her because she makes Kate look like the vain, petty, foolish, empty vessel that she is. Kate has no hobbies, no passion, no work experience, and no apparent interest in anything other than herself and her own family. She looks the part, but she hasn’t shown, in 10 years, that she can do the part.
Meghan rejecting royal life is even more galling because she’s showing the world that the royal family is not as glamorous, aspirational, or even mysterious as they maintain themselves to be.
Yep. Meghan is more of a threat in their eyes than Wallis Simpson ever could be–and they thought for sure she was even more disposable. And since they won’t be smart enough to leave her alone, she. “Won’t. Go. Away.” 🤣🤣🤣
Yep x 2. It is clear when they bring up Wallis Simpson, who was dead a long, long time ago, they are are reaching for fairies and snowflakes. Meanwhile, Kate will continue to do nothing, and stand for nothing.
The justice minister is someone who said he didn’t believe in human rights law & ability to move away from adjudication by the European court of human rights was one of the selling points of Brexit. So this was always on the cards in the unceasingly fascist Britain. The press & government are just going to use bad Meghan as the reason why they are doing it to hoodwink the public into forgetting why such changes impact THEIR lives
So if the rewriting of laws happens (which I doubt, bc Dominic Raab is hugely unpopular and a total sleazebag), then what kind of Pandora’s box of evils would be opened regarding Andrew? I’m sure there’s a massive amount of incriminating emails, texts, travel records involving more trafficked women, etc. between PA, Maxwell and Epstein that have been hidden away from the prying press. There are a LOT of skeletons in the royal closets that could be revealed if this happens.
It has the makings of a bad law. Not good for democracy.
“…he believes the balance has slipped too far in favour of the ability of rich individuals to protect their secrets…”
Yipes. Watch your six, William!! 🤣🤣🤣
Soooooo, I guess if they change their laws Tatler doesn’t need to worry and can rewrite the story aboit Kate and the BBC can air all the podcasts about the princes and the press without worry
Meghan our God .Let’s bow down and worship her !
The fact that no less than the British Prime Minister BJohnson and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said they would intervene to correct the principle of free speech being outweighed by protection of privacy speaks a lot about the racist attitude and entitlement of most of the British people. It also speaks about the injustice Meghan has to put up with even if it’s already the law that upheld and said she won her copyright and privacy case against ANL (and William). It also speaks how relevant she is in Britain and how much more relevant she is than the combined tandem of William and Kate. She’s freaking them all out. She will long be talked about in history for fighting, standing up, and winning against the racist William/Kate and the British press. And for legally making them pay her and apologize to her publicly in a prominent page in their own publication.
Word.
Word.
Word.
Applause!!!!
Let’s see, the month of November England had in short.
Tourism is significantly down.
Barbados drops the Queen (other Commonwealth countries want to also)
Will says Africans are overpopulating and ruining things.
A WOC is victorious against a major British tabloid and laws may need to be rewritten because of that victory.
What a fine marketing dept. England has for their country.lol
She is freaking them all out. But they can make it stop simply by ceasing to stalk and harass her. Why is that so difficult for them to grasp?
Meghan cannot be allowed to win at any cost. They will literally destroy themselves to try and bring her down, and still they will fail. I’m loving watching the side of good win.
this is the most absurd balderdash. these people don’t—can’t possibly—want privacy protections relaxed—*particularly* for those in the public sphere. at any rate, meghan’s case isn’t strictly a privacy case; it’s also a copyright case. i’m hoping that raab’s statement (“continental-style”) is merely xenophobic red-meat, dangled in front of the public, to distract the base from whatever is the latest tory scandale du jour—and not a sincere declaration of intent. they can’t be *that* stupid, can they?
This beautiful black queen has so much power and she doesn’t even realize it. I love this for her. Keep doing you Megs, make them sweat and quiver at your name.
There is only one guiding principle of conservativism. There are two classes of people. One the law protects, but does not bind, the other the law binds but does not protect.
They are angry Meghan can cite the law and use it against them. They, probably correctly, assume they will be able to bully the press into keeping their secrets, law or no law.
It’s telling but Meghan’s case is just an excuse, the British government is a bunch of disaster capitalists trying to extract as much value as they can from the wreck of Brexit. The mention of the Human Rights Act and the ECHR is the tell–both of those are on the chopping block in the near future because they hinder the government doing whatever it likes.
There ARE plans to consider changes to judicial processes but it has no bearing on Meghan’s case. It has no bearing on privacy, copyright or the civil proceedings in this case. It relates to the judicial review process whereby decisions made by government departments can be reviewed and changed by a judicial tribunal.