Why Magna Carta matters | BBC History Magazine - 0 views
-
The making of Magna Carta was a turning point in English constitutional history. The charter’s great achievement was to place the monarchy – the executive power – under the law.
-
and the law. Some thinkers of the time said that the king was above the law: that he made the law and he enforced it, but he was not actually bound by it himself.
- ...6 more annotations...
-
The two most famous clauses of the charter, numbers 39 and 40, still resonate across the centuries. Clause 39 says that no free man shall be arrested, imprisoned or dispossessed of his lands without judgment of his peers or against the law of the land. Clause 40 says that to no free man will right or justice be delayed or denied.
-
It is also an inspiration in that it encourages us to champion those same principles, to be vigilant in our defence of due process, and to assist those in less favoured lands who are fighting for the kind of freedoms that we, as a result of Magna Carta, take for granted.
-
The question then arises of what we think is the best way of preserving the rights of the individual against the state in future. Do we perhaps need a new Magna Carta, a bill of rights, to protect us from growing executive power and the flood of legislation pouring in from Europe?
-