London - High Court judges yesterday blocked the Guardian's challenge to a 153-year-old law which makes it an offence punishable by life imprisonment to advocate the abolition of the monarchy in print.
The legal action was linked to the newspaper's launch last December of a campaign for a referendum on the monarchy. The Guardian asked the Attorney-General for an assurance that no prosecution under the 1848 Treason Felony Act would follow if newspaper articles advocated peaceful change.
But yesterday two judges ruled there could be no challenge under the Human Rights Act or application for judicial review - because there had been no actual decision by the Attorney General to prosecute the newspaper, even though articles advocating a republican Britain had been published.
