The emotional plea for privacy and protection of his children by Prince Willem-Alexander in court opened Dutch news programmes on Friday.
In a letter read to Judge Rullmann in Amsterdam the Dutch Crown Prince spoke of tension filled holidays in Porto Ercole, Italy, where he and his brothers had to hide in a ship’s cabin to avoid the paparazzi. In the end his brothers stopped visiting their grandfather Prince Bernhard for that reason.
Read also: AP fights 'worldwide censorship by Dutch royals' and 'Reporters Without Borders strongly condemn Dutch photo ban'
"There was always the chance that you were photographed, and even when there were no photographers, you could never be sure", Willem-Alexander’s lawyer Hendrik Jan Boukema read in court. The prince wants for his daughters are carefree youth, in which they move about freely as they prepare for a future life in the public eye. He should not have to lock them up behind palace walls, he wrote.
For that reason he and his wife Princess Máxima felt pictures published of their recent vacation in the Argentine skiresort Cerro Bayo, near Villa La Angosture in Patagonia, were a infringement on their and their daughters’ privacy. They form a burden to his family, the lawyer for the Dutch royal couple claimed.
They demand the American press agency The Associated Press removes the (four) photos from its database, where the pictures are available to all its members and subscribers. Lawyers for the agency countered that such a ruling would constitute ‘worldwide censorship’ and falls outside the jursdiction of the Amsterdam court. The pictures did not violate the privacy of the princely family, AP said.
Lawyers for both sides argued at length about the ‘news worthiness’ of the pictures. Only if they ‘contribute to a public debate in a case of common interest’ are they legitimate, the couple’s lawyer argued. He referred to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in favour of Princess Caroline of Hanover (and Monaco) in a similar case. In fact the Dutch royal family bases its restrictions on media access on that landmark ruling.
AP stated that skiing pictures have always been in the public’s interest, providing the judge with over 490 earlier photos and a DVD with footage of royal skiing holidays. Judge Rullmann who called the film ‘cute’ was otherwise not very impressed. ,,Times have changed she said. What was permissable under Queen Juliana forty years ago is not relevant today."
Much to the chagrin of the royal couple and the Government Information Service Dutch television showed the holiday pictures the couple want to have banned in their news programmes Friday evening. Their argument: they are now part of a public debate in the common interest. © HJ; Photo by DPP
Comments