Following a challenge by the Guardian newspaper over the decision to hear the application to seal Prince Philip’s will privately, the Court of Appeal is set to consider the privacy of royal wills going forward.
In November last year the Guardian launched an appeal against the decision of the president of the Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane who said that “there was, legally, therefore no role for those who might represent the media at a hearing (public or private) in putting forward any contrary view of the public interest”, with the Guardian stating that the decision represented a “serious interference with the principle of open justice”.
Sir Andrew McFarlane had initially thought that the hearing should be made public but was persuaded by the executor of Prince Philip’s estate and attorney general Michael Ellis QC that the hearing should be conducted in private. Prince Philip’s will was consequently sealed for 90 years.
Permission to appeal the decision was granted to the Guardian this week by Lady Justice King earlier this week, based on the argument that McFarlane had erred in law in denying the media an “opportunity to make submissions, or at least to attend and hear submissions”.
Permission to appeal on two further grounds relating to whether the decision to hear the application in private “was itself wrong” and whether the High Court erred by finding that the attorney general was “the only person who is recognised by public law as being entitled to represent public interest in a court of justice”, was also granted by Lady Justice King.
