Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
Here's an excerpt from Magna Carta:
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights ... or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land."
Those are the words from which habeas corpus, prohibition of torture, trial by jury and due process of law have stemmed from the last 800 years.
Magna Carta is considered a seminal building block of democracy because simply put, it established that everyone is subject to the rule of law.
Magna Carta is the foundation of many of what we consider to be fundamental human rights and constitutional rights. Particularly the right of habeus corpus, which is the right to test your detention, the right to be free essentially from executive detention. You have a right to go to court, the king can't just send you into a prison, or the president (or Prime minister) can't without taking you to a court. The prohibition on torture came out of it. Really fundamental rights.
It's very important to talk about Magna Carta particularly for two reasons:
(1) Let's look at those rights and see how they've come down and whether there's more than lip service being paid to them by our current politicians.
(2) When people talk about the Magna Carta they forget about another charter of liberty that occurred at roughly the same time and was considered equally important at the time, and that's called "The Charter of the Forest".
Magna Carta gave what we call political and judicial rights.
The Charter of the Forest actually gave economic rights. And it's ignored of course in this country and in the United States, particularly because this is a country that doesn't believe in economic rights.
Does Harper believe in economic rights? I don't think so.
Have your say
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights ... or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land."
Those are the words from which habeas corpus, prohibition of torture, trial by jury and due process of law have stemmed from the last 800 years.
Magna Carta is considered a seminal building block of democracy because simply put, it established that everyone is subject to the rule of law.
Magna Carta is the foundation of many of what we consider to be fundamental human rights and constitutional rights. Particularly the right of habeus corpus, which is the right to test your detention, the right to be free essentially from executive detention. You have a right to go to court, the king can't just send you into a prison, or the president (or Prime minister) can't without taking you to a court. The prohibition on torture came out of it. Really fundamental rights.
It's very important to talk about Magna Carta particularly for two reasons:
(1) Let's look at those rights and see how they've come down and whether there's more than lip service being paid to them by our current politicians.
(2) When people talk about the Magna Carta they forget about another charter of liberty that occurred at roughly the same time and was considered equally important at the time, and that's called "The Charter of the Forest".
Magna Carta gave what we call political and judicial rights.
The Charter of the Forest actually gave economic rights. And it's ignored of course in this country and in the United States, particularly because this is a country that doesn't believe in economic rights.
Does Harper believe in economic rights? I don't think so.
Have your say
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