By JILL LAWLESS
AP News
LONDON (AP) — A British judge ruled Wednesday that the Duchess of Sussex can keep the names of five close friends secret while she brings a privacy invasion lawsuit against a British newspaper — but he chided both sides in the case for playing out their battle in the media as well as the courtroom.
High Court judge Mark Warby agreed, “for the time being at least,” to grant Meghan’s request to protect the anonymity of friends who defended her in the pages of a U.S. magazine in order to spare them a “frenzy of publicity” before the case comes to a full trial.
The former Meghan Markle is suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and the MailOnline website over five articles that published portions of a handwritten letter she wrote to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, after her marriage to Prince Harry in 2018.
Meghan, 39, is seeking damages from publisher Associated Newspapers Ltd. for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and data protection breaches.
The duchess asked the judge to prohibit publishing details of female friends who spoke anonymously to People magazine to condemn the alleged bullying she had received from the media. She argued that the friends were not parties to the case and had a “basic right to privacy.”
The women’s names are included in a confidential court document, but they have been identified in public only as A to E.
Associated Newspapers’ attorney Antony White said during a court hearing last week that the friends were potential witnesses, and keeping their names secret “would be a heavy curtailment of the media’s and the defendant’s entitlement to report this case, and the public’s right to know about it.”
The judge acknowledged he had to balance “the competing demands of confidentiality and open justice.” Read more from AP News.
Stay informed: News Without Politics
