British justice has inflicted a set on Friday on Prince Harry on Friday by rejecting its appeal against the government’s decision to retrograde its police protection in the United Kingdom.
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After leaving the country in 2020, the youngest son of King Charles III and his wife Meghan lost the systematic protection provided for active members of the royal family and paid by the British taxpayer.
From now on, the Ministry of the Interior assesses the need for protection of the prince on a case-by-case basis when it goes to the United Kingdom.
A decision that the prince has been contesting before the courts since 2021.
Friday, judge Geoffrey your said that the government’s decision had been “logical” because “the Duke of Sussex withdrew from royal functions and left the United Kingdom to live mainly abroad”.
Prince Harry, who had moved during the audiences of April 8 and 9, was not present at the rendering of the judgment.
However, the judge said he was sensitive to the prince’s “powerful and moving arguments”. But he considered that the grievances of the Duke of Sussex did not constitute “a legal argument in favor of the protest” of the government’s decision.
This is his second defeat in court for the prince, who had been dismissed last year in the same case. Justice had considered that the authorities’ decision was “legally founded”.
“Very sensitive” affair
In another procedure concluded in May 2023, he was denied the right to benefit from police protection by paying it with his personal funds.
-The subject is sensitive to Harry, who holds the press and the paparazzi as responsible for the car accident who killed her mother, Princess Diana, in Paris in 1997.
“Life and security” of the prince “are at stake,” pleaded his lawyer Shaheed Fatima at the hearing in early April.
His defense also argued that the prince notably received threats from Al-Qaeda and was taken in a “dangerous chase” with paparazzi in New York in May 2023.
The lawyer for the Ministry of the Interior, James Eadie, had defended the “tailor -made” approach adopted by the British authorities, which corresponds better to the change of status of the prince within the royal family.
At the statement of the judgment, the judge recognized the “very sensitive political” nature of the case.
During the examination of his appeal at first instance, Harry said that his fears for his security and that of his family – including his two children Archie (5 years old) and Lilibet (3 years) – prevented him from coming more regularly to the country.
The prince is cold with the rest of the royal family, against which he has multiplied the attacks in recent years. His last known interview with his father dates back more than a year, shortly after the announcement of Charles III cancer.
Prince Harry also engaged in a legal crusade against tabloids in the United Kingdom, with more or less success.
He also made the headlines recently, after having resigned from his function as a sponsor of an association working in Africa and which he had created in memory of his mother, due to a conflict with his president.
She accused him of “harassment and intimidation”, and the British regulator of associations opened an investigation.
Denouncing the “lies” of the president, Harry said to hope that the investigation reveals “the truth about what has collectively forced us to resign”, with the co -founder of the NGO, the Prince Seeiso du Lesotho.
