The Prince Charles's Black Spider Memos

The Prince Charles's black spider memos

Prince Charles should to be an activist king or an apolitical one? Britain must decide.

The Supreme Court set to decide the fate of black spider memos. But "What are the black spider memos, who wrote them, and why?”.

Black spider memos were written by the heir to the throne, Prince Charles and, as the royal family explains: “it is central to the British constitution that the reigning monarch should remain politically neutral”.
In fact, Charles been writing to ministers for over 30 years.  In government circles his communications have come to be known as the black spider memos because its dark longhand scrawled handwriting.

Are these black spider memos could influence the Prince's constitutional obligations as a future monarch? Could he be exploiting his position? For the time being, we don’t know.

Black spider memos have never been seen by the public, we only see a judicial ping pong. In 2010, the Information Commissioner rejected the Guardians request but conceded that Prince Charles had written to ministers in seven government departments. The Guardians and specially the Guardian journalist Rob Evans, applied to see letters under the Freedom of Information. The government maintain that the Prince Charles was "perfectly entitled to correspond with ministers and it was proper, even vital, to keep this correspondence confidential".

In September 2012, the Upper Tribunal reached a verdict and ordered the correspondents to be published (27 out of 30 letters). The seven government departments concerned did not appeal but a month later, the government in the former of Attorney General Dominic Grieve veto the Tribunal's decision and blocked the release of the letters. September 2004 to March 2005 Grieve said that any perception, the prince had disagreed with the Labour government and the letters reflected that "the Prince of Wales most deeply held personal views and beliefs, their disclosure might undermine his position of political neutrality". In May 2013, The Guardians went to the High Court seeking to overturn the attorney general's decision. In 2014, nine years after the Freedom of Information, request was filled. Three Court of Appeal judges unanimously ruled the attorney general had acted unlawfully and that Mr Grieve had “no good reason” for using the ministerial veto.

The Attorney General had one last card to play. Instead of disclosing letters he appealed to the Supreme Court: once the court decides "we'd like to see them or we want". The BBC's royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell, says the government now has 30 days to prepare the publication of the 27 letters which have been cleared for publication.

The time has finally come for Prince Charles to put his cards on the table. His friend and biographer, Jonathan Dimbley said “a quiet constitutional revolution is afoot”. Perhaps Charles is hopeful his messages will play well with the public, so that he might win their approval and escape the shackles of political neutrality that underpin Grieve’s thinking about how a monarch should behave. Some observers believe the winds are blowing in Charles’s favour.

In January, a poll by YouGov found that 54% of people believe it is “appropriate for the prince to speak out about issues he feels strongly about”, while 34% think he should keep quiet.

The question about Charles’s neutrality could trigger opinion in favour of Prince William. Already 31% of people would prefer to see William become the next king.

If Charles wanted to intervene, a new system of transparency about his communications with the government would be required. I think he can afford a more activist king that the Queen has been. Anti-monarchy campaigners think Charles risked bringing down the monarchy altogether because an activist king would be intolerable in a democratic society.

For my part, a review of the monarchy’s role in such circumstances is likely to concern Great Britain.

The Supreme Court

(https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/role-of-the-supreme-court.html)

The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal in the UK for civil cases and for criminal cases. It’s a fundamental pillar of the constitution because Courts are the final arbiter between the citizen and the state. Also, the Court resolve disputes relating to devolution in the United Kingdom and concerning the legal powers of the three devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or laws made by the devolved legislatures, maintains and develops the role of the highest court in United Kingdom as a leader in the common law world.