Irish Examiner View: UK trial is legal setback for Vatican

The sovereign state must face a hearing brought by British financier Raffaele Mincione.

Prelates listen to Pope Francis during a ceremony of Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican in 2019. Picture: Andrew Medichini/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Legal history will be made in English courts when the Vatican faces an overseas trial, for the first time in its existence, over a complex land deal in London involving a former Harrods warehouse valued at €148m.

A decision by the British Court of Appeal means that the 121-acre sovereign state must face a hearing brought by a British financier, Raffaele Mincione, who is himself the subject of charges initiated by the Vatican over the property at 60 Sloane Avenue in Kensington and Chelsea, which was targeted for luxury development.

Vatican prosecutors claim Mr Mincione committed fraud by inflating the price when his companies sold the property in 2018. He and 10 others face accusations of fraud, embezzlement, and abuse of office. 

It tried to argue that English courts had no jurisdiction to rule on its investment and that a hearing would interfere with its criminal investigation, with “legitimate acts of a foreign state” and would serve “no useful purpose”. 

The judges found that there was no defence of sovereign immunity because the dispute relates to a commercial transaction.

Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Vatican could not be held liable for the actions of priests and bishops around the world and was therefore protected from claims by the victims of clerical sexual abuse.

The Vatican has pursued those involved in the property transaction through the courts, including former papal adviser Cardinal Giovanni Becciu. It was recently claimed that Pope Francis authorised secret wiretaps during the criminal investigation. 

Now one element of the case will be tested outside of the Eternal City.