(294)  DIANA AND DODI IN PARLIAMENT HOUSE

Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrod’s, is seeking judicial review in the Court of Session of the Lord Advocate’s refusal of a public inquiry in Scotland into the death of his son and Diana, Princess of Wales in Paris in August 1997.  He believes his ownership of Balnagown Castle in Easter Ross should give him access to the Scottish legal system.  Mr Fayed argues that under the European Convention on Human Rights he is entitled as next-of-kin to be properly informed of the cause of his son’s death because there are grounds for supposing that his death was unlawful.  The case began on 15 December 2003.  Mr Fayed was reported as saying: Still I believe I will get justice here in Scotland.  My first home is here, I have lived here for 35 years and all the time you pray to God that things can be done fairly with all the means that I can have.   Mr Fayed has previously lost a judicial review case in Scotland when he challenged a decision of the Inland Revenue to withdraw from an agreement with him and other members of his family in relation to their tax liability (see Fayed v Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 31 May 2002, Lord Justice Clerk Gill); but Lord Gill held that the agreement had been ultra vires the Inland Revenue.  Although Mr Fayed then launched an appeal, subsequently in May 2003 he announced that he was going to live permanently in Switzerland, because of the unfairness of the Revenue to him in this matter (see his website, http://www.alfayed.com).