The controversy over Prince Charles’s letters is a manifestation of a centuries-old constitutional problem, says Tim Malloch
The Supreme Court has now heard the case brought by The Guardian journalist Rob Evans. Since 2005 Evans has been using the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Directive (EID) to try and obtain copies of handwritten letters that the Prince of Wales has written to various government departments. Judgment is expected next year.
When delivering judgment on a case that has ran for nine years, the Supreme Court will conduct a public interest balancing exercise. This will involve evaluating the UK government’s right to maintain that the Prince's personal correspondence is private and the right for the public to know to what extent an unelected monarch in waiting attempted to influence a democratically elected government.
This is a manifestation of a constitutional problem that philosophers have considered for centuries. Plato’s The Republic, probably written by about 380 BC, described an ideal society where political power is placed in the hands of a Philosopher King, a specially trained ruler
