April 8 (UPI) — Prince Harry was back in court Tuesday to appeal the British government’s decision to strip his publicly-funded security.
Harry, 40, stepped down as a full-time member of the royal family and had his security downgraded in February 2020 when he moved to the United States with his wife, actress Meghan Markle, 43.
It meant he was only provided a security detail by the state on a case-by-case basis.
The case, meanwhile, is set to run through Wednesday as legal representatives of the Duke of Sussex argue that the agency responsible for royal security had not been following its own policies, further claiming that he and his family were under special threats which he says may be racially motivated.
Last year in February, the youngest son of King Charles III lost a challenge in Britain’s High Court claiming that a downgrade to his security status was unlawful, which the court said was a “legally sound” act.
An unnamed legal representative said previously that the younger brother of the prince of Wales and future king “inherited a security risk at birth, for life.”
“He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi extremist threats,” the representative said.
It’s one of no less than six lawsuits involving the former working royal.
On Tuesday, an attorney for Harry said he was “singled out” for what was called “different unjustified and inferior treatment.”
Britain’s Home Office suggested the prince is comparing his status to that of the royal family, explaining that the young son of the late Princess Diana has not had his security completely removed, but rather is simply not “on the same basis” as senior royals.
“We are in territory in which there are no right or wrong answers, there are matters of judgement against broad, soft-edged criteria,” Sir James Eadie KC, a British government lawyer, said in court.
At the end of March, the now California resident resigned from Sentebale, the African charity he co-founded in 2006 in honor of the late princes of Wales to help HIV and Aids patients in southern Africa.
Meanwhile, a written judgment in Harry’s case will be issued at a later date.