Do Let's Avoid An Unseemly Legal Tussle Over Royal Remains

Human remains were discovered underneath a municipal car park in Leicester in 2012. DNA testing confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the excavated skeleton was that of King Richard III, the last monarch of the house of Plantagenet (defeated and killed at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the culmination of the War of the Roses between the Yorkist and Lancastrian lines of the dynasty). The University of Leicester, which had conducted the dig, applied to the Secretary of State for a licence to re-inter the remains of the crouchback king (the skeleton showed signs of scoliosis) in Leicester cathedral in accordance with the Burial Act 1857. All well and good, one would have thought, until the Plantagenet Alliance Ltd challenged the granting of the licence. The Alliance, composed of collateral descendants of the king, want the royal body to be buried in York, Richard III having been the last of the Yorkists.

But did the descendants have standing to seek judicial review of the Secretary of State's decision? Yes, said Haddon-Cave J of the Administrative Court: Plantagenet Alliance Ltd v Secretary of State for Justice, [2013] EWHC B13 (Admin). The judge was satisfied that the Alliance and its members had a 'sufficient interest' in the matter, both on conventional principles of administrative law and in light of the 'unusual circumstances ... of the discovery of the proven remains of a former monarch'. While the Burial Act 1857 grants wide discretion to grant licences for reburial, the Secretary of State was under a common-law duty to consult before making a decision, and the category of appropriate people who needed to be consulted was 'very wide'...