Meghan Markle, new victory (in court)

«This is a win not only for me but for anyone who has ever been afraid to stand up for what is right“. Like this Meghan Markle commented his new victory in court against the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, the two British tabloids from her cited in court for publishing excerpts from the private letter sent to dad Thomas in August 2018. The Court of Appeal confirmed the first instance ruling: the Duchess’s right to privacy has been violated. Because Harry’s wife, as the London High Court had already established last February, “he had reasonable expectations that the letter would remain private».

The sentence, as Luigi Ippolito points out in the Corriere della Sera, will make discuss. Why during the proceedings Meghan’s lies had emerged. The former actress, unlike what was declared a year ago, had admitted to having “collaborated” in the drafting of Finding Freedom, the reconstruction – all for the benefit of Harry and Meghan – of the break between the Sussex and the royal family. A “forgetfulnessShe had argued. A lie that could cost her dearly, most had thought.

Not only. On appeal, British tabloid lawyers brought a bombshell witness: Jason Knauf, former Sussex and Cambridge communications secretary. Knauf said flatly that Meghan asked her advice for writing the letter to Dad Thomas. Because he wrote it “Expecting it would end up in the newspapers”. In the letter the Duchess addressed her parent affectionately calling him “daddy” just “to touch the heartstrings” of the audience. Knauf’s statements proved, according to British tabloid lawyers, that the letter for which the Duchess had sued “It was not an intimate communication intended only for his father”.

The appellate judges, however, ruled that this new evidence presented by the newspapers is “of little help“. And they agreed with Meghan. A decision that the allows you not to have to testify in the courtroom. The Duchess naturally rejoices. In his statement immediately after the sentence, Markle stressed that this is a precedent capable of “reshaping a ‘tabloid industry that affects people a be cruel and profit from the lies and pain it creates».

Of different opinion, as reported by the Corriere della Sera, some British legal experts, who underlined the worrying consequences for freedom of expression: “This decision”, commented the lawyer Matthew Dando, “increases the concern that privacy laws allow public figures to selectively determine what can be reported about them, and so on manipulate the media narrative. It is a dangerous precedent ».