Prince Harry loses court battle with British government over security

LONDON — Prince Harry lost his fight with the British government over the stripping back of his taxpayer-funded security protection.

King Charles III’s youngest son, also known as the Duke of Sussex, had been challenging a decision to downgrade his security detail when on British soil after he resigned from his royal duties and moved to the U.S. in January 2020.

But the High Court, which heard parts of Harry’s bid for a judicial review of the move in private, ruled Wednesday that the U.K. government had not acted unfairly in instead switching to a system that assessed the threat to Harry on a “case by case basis.”

The decision to pare back the duke’s protection was made by a Home Office group called the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec). It ruled that the prince and his family should no longer get the “same degree” of protection they were previously afforded when living full-time in the U.K.

Harry was granted permission to challenge the Home Office, with his lawyers arguing the decision to remove police protection was made unfairly. The off-duty royal claimed “procedural unfairness” and bias in its decision making.

That argument was rejected by the High Court Wednesday, with Justice Peter Lane issuing a partially-redacted 51-page ruling dismissing the claim “that there was any procedural unfairness” in Ravec’s decision-making.

“Insofar as the case-by-case approach may otherwise have caused difficulties, they have not been shown to be such as to overcome the high hurdle so as to render the decision-making irrational,” Lane’s judgment reads.