Palace letters: high court rules Queen's secret correspondence in lead-up to Whitlam dismissal are commonwealth records

Historian Jenny Hocking wins landmark case after campaigning for release of secret letters between monarch and then Australian governor general Sir John Kerr

The historian Jenny Hocking has won a landmark high court case in her bid to secure sensitive correspondence between the Queen and former Australian governor general Sir John Kerr about the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

The high court on Friday ruled that the commonwealth was wrong to withhold the so-called “palace letters”, a series of more than 200 exchanges between the Queen, her private secretary, and Kerr, the then governor general, in the lead-up to the 1975 dismissal of Whitlam, the then Australian prime minister.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ZSOQE1