The British justice rejects the harassment lawsuit that Corinna Larsen filed against Juan Carlos I

The High Court of England and Wales has ruled that Juan Carlos I He cannot be tried in the United Kingdom for the lawsuit for alleged harassment filed against him by his ex-lover Corinna Larsen, lawsuit in which he claims 126 million pounds (about 146 million euros) from the emeritus in damages. The British judge Rowena Collins Rice ruled this Friday to dismiss the lawsuit, accepting the arguments of the monarch’s defense, which alleged that the British courts were not competent to judge the case.

The judge has communicated the decision, which is appealable, by email to the parties. The lawsuit includes episodes, described as harassment by the plaintiff, that took place in different countries (mainly the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Brazil and Monaco) between 2012 and 2020. The alleged events that occurred before June 2014, date of the abdication of Juan Carlos I, had already been excluded from the procedure because the British courts had already recognized the immunity of the emeritus.

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“My main conclusion is that the High Court of England and Wales lacks jurisdiction to hear this claim. This is because it has not been filed against the defendant in his country of domicile., as is your default right; and the plaintiff has not convinced me that she has solid and defensible arguments that her claim falls within an exception to that predetermined rule,” the judge noted.

The emeritus’ legal team, headed by the British firm ‘Velitor Law’, had already requested in July that Larsen’s lawsuit be dismissed. considering that the courts of the United Kingdom were not competent. The defense was based on Article 4 of the EU regulation on jurisdiction, which states that people domiciled in a Member State, regardless of their nationality, must be sued before the courts of that country.

The new lawyers for the emeritus (who has changed lawyers three times) stated that “the key question” was whether, in relation to the alleged acts of harassment, the United Kingdom was the place where the alleged ‘harmful event’ occurred or the ‘ direct damage’, something that, as they pointed out, Larsen had not proven. Another of the arguments put forward by the defense was “the obvious lack of credibility of the plaintiff.” In this regard, they highlighted that Larsen had requested permission to make a new amendment to his original complaint. “Like his predecessors, is incoherent, internally contradictory and manifestly bad in legal terms”, then pointed out the defense of the king emeritus.

In fact, his defense recalled that, after the abdication of Juan Carlos I on June 14, 2014, Larsen “issued a statement of affection” where he described him as “a man of profound humanity and courage, a loyal and always attentive friend.” ”, in addition to a “giant of History”. On the other hand, Juan Carlos I’s lawyers indicated their discomfort with the fact that “the accusations involve an alleged abuse of power inconsistent with the defendant’s important role in Spain’s transition towards a successful parliamentary democracy, and with his long period of service as sovereign.”