Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, won the latest round of a protracted privacy battle with the publishing editor of the British Mail on Sunday.
This Thursday (02), a UK court denied an appeal brought by Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) against a previous judgment that the Duchess hoped to have privacy in relation to a letter she sent to her father Thomas Markle in August 2018.
Meghan filed suit against the ANL after the Mail on Sunday reproduced parts of the private letter.
The ANL and the Mail on Sunday have previously said they stuck to the decision to publish excerpts from the handwritten letter and would defend the case vigorously.
The court said in a summary of the judgment on Thursday that the Duchess “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter”.
“This content was personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest,” the court said. “The articles in the Mail on Sunday interfered with the Duchess’s reasonable expectation of privacy.”
In a statement on Thursday, Meghan commemorated the trial and expressed her hopes that it would help change the UK news industry. The ANL also publishes the Daily Mail, Britain’s biggest tabloid.
“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever been afraid to stand up for what is right,” the statement said.
“While this victory is a precedent, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel and profits from the lies and pain they create.”
The Duchess won the case against the ANL in February, when the judge ruled that “the disclosures were manifestly excessive and therefore illegal” and that there would be “no prospect that a different judgment would be reached after a trial.”
However, the ANL contested the decision and pressed for a trial.
In her statement on Thursday, Meghan criticized the publisher for extending the process and “making a straightforward and extraordinarily complicated case to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers – a model that rewards chaos above the truth.”
“In the nearly three years since this began, I have been patient in the face of deception, intimidation and calculated attacks,” she said.
“Today, the courts have ruled in my favor – again – by cementing that The Mail on Sunday, owned by Lord Jonathan Rothermere, had broken the law.”
Translated text. Read the original in English.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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