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Meghan privacy battle: Duchess of Sussex hopes to stop case going to trial

Written by on 19/01/2021

The next phase in the Duchess of Sussex’s legal battle against the Mail On Sunday gets under way later as Meghan and her legal team hope to prevent the privacy and copyright case from going to trial.

A summary judgment hearing, scheduled for two days, will be heard by Mr Justice Warby remotely over video rather than in court due to COVID restrictions.

Last October, the judge granted an application by Meghan’s legal team to postpone a trial, which was due to get under way this month, until the autumn if it goes ahead.

Justice Warby also agreed to their request for a summary judgment hearing where he will hear the legal arguments from both sides without any witnesses.

An application for summary judgment is usually made by a claimant where no defence has been filed, or the claimant believes that the defence filed by the defendant has no real prospect of success.

Meghan is suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), the publisher of the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline, for breach of copyright, infringement of her privacy, and breaches of the Data Protection Act over articles which showed parts of a letter she had written to her father, 76-year-old Thomas Markle, in August 2018.

Sections of the letter that Meghan wrote to her father were published in the newspaper and online in February 2019.

The headline on the article read: “Revealed: The letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with a father she says has ‘broken her heart into a million pieces’.”

Last summer, it was ruled that the newspaper publishers could also include the book Finding Freedom, written about the Sussexes, their relationship and their decision to step away from royal life, as part of their defence – a decision Meghan’s legal team tried to get overturned.

Emily Cox, partner in the media disputes division at law firm Stewarts told Sky News that the summary judgement hearing will be very different from the kind of “show trial” this case could become.

She said: “You shouldn’t be seeing any new evidence, anything of that nature.

“This is all going to be reasonably dry legal analysis, the stars of this show are going to be the barristers, it’s not going to be the Duchess and her father.”

Explaining why Meghan’s legal team would have been so keen to go down this route, she said: “There are a lot of attractions to a summary judgment application.

“The main one is that you are limiting the judge’s analysis of the issues to the pure legal points.

“So does Associated Newspapers have any credible defence to the legal points made, without the waters being muddied with all the factual witnesses and the media fanfare that would accompany high profile individuals taking the stand?

“So from a publicity perspective and a big circus perspective, as well as costs, there are a lot of reasons why it would be an attractive option for the Duchess.”

In October, during their application for the summary judgment, Meghan’s legal team made it clear that they were confident in their case, they do not believe that the defence’s case has a chance of succeeding, and do not believe there is a compelling reason for trial.

Throughout the preliminary hearings they have continued to say that it is important to remember that Meghan is not on trial and that the Mail On Sunday is.

Associated Newspapers denies the allegations against them, particularly the duchess’s claim that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning and says it will strongly contest the case.

(c) Sky News 2021: Meghan privacy battle: Duchess of Sussex hopes to stop case going to trial