The Duke of Sussex has lost an initial attempt to appeal against a high court decision to back a reduction in his level of personal security when visiting the UK.
The prince took legal action against the Home Office after a decision in February 2020 by the executive committee for the protection of royalty and public figures (Ravec) to downgrade his publicly funded security.
Ravec’s decision was made after Harry lost his status as a full-time working member of the royal family, a judge was told.
In February, the retired high court judge Sir Peter Lane concluded that Ravec’s approach was not irrational nor procedurally unfair. At the time, a spokesperson for the prince said he intended to challenge that judgment, adding that Harry “hopes he will obtain justice from the court of appeal”.
On Monday, a judicial spokesperson said the prince had lost his first appeal attempt. But they added that he was still able to ask the court of appeal directly for permission to challenge Lane’s decision.
In the initial decision to refuse Harry the chance to appeal, Lane said the appeal attempt was “largely a recapitulation of the case advanced by the claimant at trial”.
He said in comments published on Monday: “The reality of the matter is that the claimant considers he should receive a different approach to his protection whilst in the UK than Ravec decided he should, based in part on his comparison of his own position with that of others. Ravec, as an expert body, concluded otherwise. It was entitled to do so.”
Separately, Harry has been ordered to pay 90% of the Home Office’s legal costs of defending his challenge.
In an order published on Monday, Lane said the prince should pay most of the Home Office’s legal costs, but added that the government department had committed “breaches” during the legal challenge that were “sanctionable”. He continued: “They have resulted in the case being largely contested by reference to new grounds, which have not been subjected to the normal permission process.
“The breaches resulted from misapprehensions on the part of the defendant as to the duty of disclosure, which this decision has had to address at some length. It is, therefore, right that there should be a modest but still significant reduction in the award of costs to the defendant.”
Lane said the costs to be paid should be reduced by 10%, rejecting an argument from Harry’s lawyers that they should be reduced by at least 50%.
Lane said: “There is no merit in this ‘partial success’ submission … The fact that the court did not accept each and every submission of the defendant as to the path to take towards dismissal of the claim does not alter the fact that the claimant comprehensively lost.”
In his 52-page partially redacted ruling dismissing the prince’s claim in February, Lane said Harry’s lawyers had taken “an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process”, adding: “The ‘bespoke’ process devised for the claimant in the decision of 28 February 2020 was, and is, legally sound.”
Harry, who was not present during the hearing of the case in December, lives in the US with his wife, Meghan, and their two children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020.
