UK Supreme Court dismisses attorney general’s appeal against publication of Prince Charles’ letters to government

The Supreme Court dismissed the attorney general’schallenge against a decision of the Court of Appealfrom last year that he acted unlawfully in preventing the public from seeing the so called “black spider” letters.

Judges in the Court of Appeal ruled unanimously the attorney general had “no good reason” to use his ministerial veto to prevent the publication of the letters - in doing so he overrode the decision of an independent tribunal chaired by a High Court judge.

Attempts to access the letters began in 2005 when Guardian journalist Rob Evans made a freedom of information request seeking disclosure of the letters.

In September 2012 an upper tribunal decided he was entitled to see “advocacy correspondence” and that the government was required to disclose 27 of 30 items requested.

The prime minister, David Cameron and Clarence House both said they were disappointed by the judges’ decision.

The prince’s spokesperson said: “This is a matter for the government. Clarence House is disappointed the principle of privacy has not been upheld.”

Mr Cameron said: “This is a disappointing judgment and we will now consider how to release these letters. This is about the principle that senior members of the royal family are able to express their views to government confidentially.

“I think most people agree this is fair enough.

“Our FOI (Freedom of Information) laws specifically include the option of a governmental veto, which we exercised in this case for a reason.

“If the legislation does not make parliament’s intentions for the veto clear enough, then we will need to make it clearer.”

Downing Street has not given a timetable for publication, a spokeswoman said the government will now need to undertake “preparatory work” and decide how to best publish the correspondence.

She said: “The preparatory work we are doing is to look at what information we release and the best way to do that.”