{UAH} Prince Charles's letters: single email set off tussle involving 16 judges' rulings
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Prince Charles's letters: single email set off tussle involving 16 judges' rulings
In 2005, the Guardian's editor decided to test the Freedom of Information Act. Now the public can judge the prince's actions for themselves
It started in April 2005 with a simple one-line email from the editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger: could we submit freedom of information requests to ministers to see what letters they have received, and on what subjects, fromPrince Charles?
Back then, I could have scarcely imagined that a decade on, we would still be arguing with the government to see the letters.
I knew that what we were asking to see was sensitive, but I would not have predicted that it would develop into a tussle that would require rulings from 16 judges, stretching from a lowly tribunal to the highest court in the land.
Thursday's verdict from the supreme court opens the way for the publication of 27 pieces of correspondence between the prince and ministers in seven Whitehall departments. It appears to be the decisive ruling that should leave the government with no option but to hand over the letters.
When the Guardian submitted the request, the Freedom of Information Act, introduced by Tony Blair's government, was in its infancy. If I remember correctly, we wondered how useful this new tool would be to break open what has been one of the most secret areas of British politics.
For many years, the heir to the throne has been writing to ministers promoting his opinions on many subjects. The earliest we could find was in 1969 – the year he was crowned Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Caernarfon Castle – about overfishing of Atlantic salmon. But how many letters he has sent, on what subjects and, crucially, whether ministers acceded to his lobbying, has been largely a mystery.
The Prince of Wales dressed in his investiture regalia in 1969. Photograph: PAFrom time to time, a few of the letters have been leaked, but beyond that, nothing has been published officially. Our request was an attempt to find out some solid facts: the contents of actual letters he had written, and the responses from ministers, so that the public could judge for themselves whether they approved of his letter writing.
Letters written to Harold Wilson from Prince Charles in 1969. Photograph: SuppliedCompared with his famously mute mother, the prince has gained a reputation for bombarding ministers with his "black spider memos" – letters written, it is said, in his black inky scrawl on red-crested HRH notepaper. But whether he should be doing this has recently become a more acute question. He is now closer to ascending the throne. In the past, courtiers indicated that he would stop lobbying ministers when he became king.
However, his aides now seem to be signalling that he will become a more campaigning sovereign than his mother, intervening more in the public life of the nation. It is far from clear whether the British people are prepared to accept a monarch who feels he is entitled to interfere in British politics.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. He has a reputation for bombarding ministers with his 'black spider memos', named because of his handwriting. Photograph: Ben Curtis/EPAThe dispute over whether the 27 pieces of correspondence should be published has been essentially a legal contest. It has been fought out all the way from a freedom of information tribunal, sitting in a nondescript building in a central London side-street, through the high court and appeal court, to the grandeur of the supreme court.
In often arid hearings, clever barristers have spent hours arguing over arcane points of constitutional conventions and freedom of information law. Fortunately for the Guardian, the paper was able to retain barristers who outwitted the government's lawyers. The government hired a new team of lawyers in the latter stages of the dispute.
The ghost in the proceedings has been Charles himself. Nothing has been seen or heard from him, while his lawyers have not made representations in the hearings.
Legally, he has not been part of the dispute, as it is the government that has been required to resist the request for the letters. Six royal aides and lawyers were seen at one hearing discreetly monitoring the arguments. Outside the hearings, however, his spokesman made it clear to the Guardian that the Prince of Wales "has not consented to disclosure" of the letters.
Over the past decade, I have been asked if the Guardian requested the correspondence between the prince and ministers for a specific period – September 2004 and April 2005 – because we had been given a tip-off that Charles had sent a particularly controversial letter to a minister.
The answer is much more prosaic. We limited our correspondence to those eight months because freedom of information rules allow the government to refuse requests if you ask for too much.
We have no more idea of what is in those letters today than we did a decade ago, but we now seem to be much closer to knowing.
What the prince and his aides have been thinking during the long tussle is not known. Last year, one told Catherine Mayer, whose book on Charles was published in February, that it might have been better for the letters to have somehow leaked and finally bring the saga to a conclusion.
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