Meghan Markle’s formal lawsuit against the Daily Mail and its parent company Associated Newspapers has come to a stalemate as of late however the precedings continue to press on because the duchess is adamant on protecting the privacy of all five women “who form an essential part of Meghan’s inner circle.”
Earlier the former Duchess of Sussex filed a formal application to stop Associated Newspapers from ousting the names of the five women under the pretense that “These five women are not on trial, and nor am I.”
It is in fact “The publisher of the Mail on Sunday” who is one on trial. “It is this publisher that acted unlawfully and is attempting to evade accountability; to create a circus and distract from the point of this case—that the Mail on Sunday unlawfully published my private letter.”
Her past statement urged the London court to respectfully “treat this legal matter with the sensitivity it deserves, and to prevent the publisher of the Mail on Sunday from breaking precedent and abusing the legal process by identifying these anonymous individuals—a privilege that these newspapers in fact rely upon to protect their own unnamed sources.”
On July 29, the issue was again brought up to Mr. Justice Warby, who is a member of the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Neither Meghan nor Harry attended the proceedings but sent in their representative Justin Rushbrooke QC, to push their case forward.
Rushbrooke pointed out, “The application raises quite a short, but very important point, “which is to what extent the court should protect the identity of confidential, journalistic sources who are not parties to the action, nor at this early stage can it be said that they are witnesses in the action.”
He went on to say, “We say at least four of the five sources have no real role at all on the issue raised by the defendant’s defense regarding the interview with People magazine in the US.One of those [sources], and only one on the claimant’s case made a passing reference to the letter written by the claimant to her father, which lies at the heart of this claim for invasion of privacy.”