Why are some so confident that Harry will win the case? I mean, I'm not British or a lawyer and maybe I don't understand something, but⌠how can he win? Can someone knowledgeable explain? Because your arguments sound logical.
I think it has to do with the appellate judge's findings from the April 2024 ruling. I think the explanation to get there is going to be long-winded so I'll ramble for a bit and when I get to answers to your questions, I'll bold them for emphasis.
February 2024: Justice Lane dismissed Harry's complaint against RAVEC (which was that Harry wanted to force RAVEC to reverse their February 2020 decision downgrading his security status and give him him "back" his "original" security/IPP status). Harry appealed.
April 2024: The judge dismissed Harry's appeal of his February 2024 ruling. Harry's lawyers appealed.
May 2024: The appellate judge found that Harry's appeal had a legitimate ground and reversed the April 2024 dismissal, meaning that Harry's appeal can now be heard.
June 2024: Harry requested that the appeal trial happen sometime in the next six weeks. The judge, Lord Bean, said "nope, you can't jump the queue." (It may or may not have something to do with the fact that Harry waited 18 months after RAVEC downgraded him to file a legal complaint. I didn't fully understand it.)
In this article from The Telegraph (archived link), they report:
However, Lord Justice Bean said that ground one, which is understood to suggest that Ravec failed to follow its own written policy, âwould have a real prospect of successâ. He also concluded Mr Justice Lane may have erred in concluding the Duke was not in a comparable position to those in the âOther VIP Categoryâ who receive state security.
So what this is saying is that Justice Lane made his ruling in February 2024 based upon finding that RAVEC followed its procedures to reassess Harry's security status when he quit. Harry disagreed with the ruling and appealed it because he feels there was evidence proving RAVEC did not follow its own procedures when they reassessed his security status. The April 2024 ruling said that Harry's appeal had no merit and dismissed it. But in the ruling for the appeal-of-the-denial-to-appeal-the-February 2024-ruling, Lord Bean (the appellate judge) found that Harry's claim actually had merit and is worth being heard out.
Lord Bean also indicated that it's possible Justice Lane overstepped in his ruling (not sure if it's the February ruling or the April ruling) when he said that Harry was not comparable to the other VIPs RAVEC supports. This one is a little confusing to me because I'm not sure what comparing Harry's position to the other VIPs had to do with RAVEC, but it sounds a little like they're opening the door for someone to argue that because Harry is incomparable to "other VIPs" (for what reason he didn't say, but let's read between the lines and assume that Lord Bean thinks it's improper to compare Harry to "other" people because he's the son of the King.
RAVEC categorizes their protectees into three tiers . There's not a whole lot known about these tiers, but this is what I'm assuming they are:
Tier 1 - Role-based security. People who get security based on the roles they occupy. Probably the main line of succession (the King, Queen, and the Waleses) and working royals, the Prime Minister, and other senior government ministers, and probably the people who have permanent around-the-clock security.
Tier 2: (Not really sure what this one is - maybe it's the rest of the royal family and junior government officials?)
Tier 3 - Other VIPs who are assessed security on a case-by-case basis.
Harry used to be a Tier 1 protectee and after RAVEC's 2020 reassessment, they downgraded him to Tier 3 (which in hindsight is a huge demotion for someone as ego-driven as him.)
With Lord Bean saying that Harry's appeal (that RAVEC didn't follow its own procedures to assess Harry's security status) has merit and allowing him to now appeal the February 2024 ruling, some people are interpreting it to mean that if the February 2024 ruling is overturned and RAVEC is forced to reassess Harry's security in accordance with their policies and procedures, they have no choice but to put him back as a Tier 1 protectee. Because the only other option is for them to not designate Harry as a protectee at all and there's an accepted assumption that that won't happen because he's the son of the King.
And this is what I think Harry expects to happen. I think Harry believes that RAVEC's protocols have clear policies on how members of the immediate line of succession should be assessed and he still sees himself as being in the immediate line of succession, aka Charles's family. And because Harry thinks those policies exist, he expects RAVEC to recategorize him as Tier 1. To which I say:
Yes, Charles's family is the line of succession now but "Charles's family" hasn't been the immediate line of succession since 2013. The immediate line of succession is now "William's family".
Anne, Andrew, and Edward existing completely debunk Harry's own expectation. Anne, Andrew, and Edward only get security when they're working and on public engagements. None of them have permanent around-the-clock security, even if they're designated Tier 1 protectees (which no one is actually sure about).
So even if RAVEC did have rules for assessing children of the monarch, they still don't give Harry what wants. Because RAVEC is still going to say "he only gets security when he's working official engagements on behalf of the King as per precedent". But maybe that's the point, because then Harry can turn around and apply more pressure on Charles to take him back, and he knows that with enough PR, Charles will fold because that's what Charles always does.
Then another part to all of this is that the government gave Harry a discount on something (I'm not fully sure what). Harry's arguing that the discount isn't enough and he wants more of a discount. I think the numbers are something like the government gave him a 10% discount but Harry wants a 50-60% discount (the numbers 10, 50, and 60 are sticking out to me for some reason). To this part, there's discussion/debate/theories that if the February 2024 ruling is overturned and RAVEC has to reassess Harry's status and they put him back at Tier 1, then Harry will sue RAVEC or the UK government for all of his security costs since February 2020. But that's a whole different thing.
I hope this helps, anon! There's a lot of pieces to this and it's not very clear cut, and I think I rambled a little bit.
But at the end of the day, people are assuming the appeal is fait accompli because if RAVEC is forced to reassess Harry's security status, they'll put him back at Tier 1. (I don't think that's their only option. They can leave him at Tier 3 or they can downgrade him entirely. IMO, if they reassess, they're going to leave him as Tier 3 with security on a case-by-case basis but maybe they'll waive the requirement for advanced notice (which Harry has never given). At best they'll put him back at Tier 1 but on the Anne/Andrew/Edward plan with "official security only when working for the King" and that leaves the ball in Charles's court so Harry can sue Charles next.
(And if Harry sued Charles, it'd actually confirm some long-ago theories and speculation that the Sussexes planned to sue for half-in/half-out and/or half of the monarchy as well.)
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