How did the Magna Carta make the giant leap from the legal history of ONE relatively SMALL European country to ACHIEVE GLOBAL INFLUENCE?
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The Magna remains a cherished, hugely influential and widely admired document. Among other things, it informed the 1689 Bill of Rights under William of Orange. It's ideas influenced the US Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Bill of Rights. It is held in great esteem in the United States, to the extent that it is even depicted on the doors of the US Supreme Court! Quite a compliment when you think about it!!
It has clearly influenced to a greater or lesser extent, the Constitutions of AUSTRALIA, INDIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND and many other Commonwealth countries.
Crucially, its influence was multiplied many times over through the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt was moved to call the 1948 document 'the international Magna Carta for all mankind.' Even a recent document such as the Charter of the Commonwealth, issued in December 2012 cited the Magna Carta as a defining inflence.
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Magna Carta has been the most valuable export of
Great Britain to the rest of the world!
What is Magna Carta?
Magna Carta, meaning ‘The Great Charter’, is one of the most famous documents in the world. Originally issued by King John of England as a solution to the political crisis he faced in 1215, Magna Carta established for the first time the principle that everybody, including the king, was subject to the law.
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Image: British Library/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age)
Although nearly a third of the text was deleted or substantially rewritten within ten years, and almost all the clauses have been repealed in modern times, Magna Carta remains a cornerstone of the British constitution. Most of the 63 clauses granted by King John dealt with specific grievances relating to his rule. However, buried within them were a number of fundamental values that both challenged the autocracy of the king and proved highly adaptable in future centuries. Most famously, the 39th clause gave all ‘free men’ the right to justice and a fair trial.
Some of Magna Carta’s core principles are echoed in the United States Bill of Rights (1791) and in many other constitutional documents around the world, as well as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950).
Why does Magna Carta matter today?
In 1215 Magna Carta was a peace treaty between the King and the rebel barons. In that respect it was a failure, but it provided a new framework for the relationship between the King and his subjects. The 1225 version of Magna Carta, freely issued by Henry III in return for a tax granted to him by the whole kingdom, took this idea further and became the definitive version of the text. Three clauses of the 1225 Magna Carta remain on the statute book today. Although most of the clauses of Magna Carta have now been repealed, the many divergent uses that have been made of it since the Middle Ages have shaped its meaning in the modern era, and it has become a potent, international rallying cry against the arbitrary use of power.
What does Magna Carta say?
Although Magna Carta contained 63 clauses when it was first granted, only three of those clauses remain part of English law. One defends the liberties and rights of the English Church, another confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, but the third is the most famous:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, 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 equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
This clause gave all free men the right to justice and a fair trial. However, ‘free men’ comprised only a small proportion of the population in medieval England. The majority of the people were unfree peasants known as ‘villeins’, who could seek justice only through the courts of their own lords.
Buried deep in Magna Carta, this clause was given no particular prominence in 1215, but its intrinsic adaptability has allowed succeeding generations to reinterpret it for their own purposes. In the 14th century Parliament saw it as guaranteeing trial by jury; in the 17th century Sir Edward Coke interpreted it as a declaration of individual liberty in his conflict with the early Stuart kings; and it has echoes in the American Bill of Rights (1791) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
Much of the remainder of Magna Carta dealt with specific grievances regarding the ownership of land, the regulation of the justice system, and medieval taxes with no modern equivalent (such as ‘scutage’ and ‘socage’). It demanded the removal of fish weirs from the Thames, the Medway and throughout England; the dismissal of several royal servants; the standardisation of various weights and measures; and so on.
Magna Carta stated that no taxes could be demanded without the ‘general consent of the realm’, meaning the leading barons and churchmen. It re-established privileges which had been lost, and it linked fines to the severity of the offence so as not to threaten an individual’s livelihood. It also confirmed that a widow could not be forced to remarry against her wishes.
Article sourced from The British Library and is used under the Creative Commons License.
http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-an-introduction
Photos: Free from known copyright restrictions
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