Dec. 2 (UPI) — Meghan Markle won a privacy battle in a British court on Thursday against a publisher that had made public part of a letter that she’d written to her estranged father three years ago when she married Prince Harry.
The Court of Appeal in London affirmed a High Court ruling in February that said the publisher of The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online violated Markle’s privacy by publishing the letter in 2018.
The legal victory Thursday is the latest development in what’s been a three-year privacy case involving the Duchess of Sussex, who stepped away from royal duties with Harry and ultimately moved to the United States.
The High Court said in its ruling early this year that there was no need for a trial. Publisher Associated Newspapers fought the decision and filed the appeal that was dismissed Thursday.
The judges upheld the ruling and said that Markle had “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
“Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest,” judge Geoffrey Vos said, according to The Guardian.
Markle said that Thursday’s ruling was a victory for “anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.”
“While this win is precedent-setting, 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 that they create,” Markle said, according to The Guardian.
The five-page letter Markle wrote to her father Thomas was published by the Mail on Sunday. The publisher argued at the time that it wasn’t obligated to keep the letter private because Markle is a public figure.