“No freeman shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped
of his rights and possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his
standing in any 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”.
The old barons forced the rule of law upon King John –
their protection against the arbitrariness of the monarch. Eight centuries on,
Prime Minister Cameron vowed with patriotic energy to “restore the reputation”
of the charter’s values with a new British Bill of Rights.
I’m not sure I would say that the
reputation of the Carta’s values has been tainted (although the Home Office
has been trying very hard to discredit its ideals), but it is certainly the
case that the reputation of those duty-bound to uphold the ‘justice for all’
principle lies in tatters. Today’s barons don’t like the hassle of due process
when it is a lot easier to get what you want by might.
Cameron’s British Bill of Rights – aimed at supplanting
the Human Rights Act – may do away with our right to be free from torture and
thus give the State the power to chastise us with iron rods and scorpions, but
it will proudly assert the supremacy of the UK courts over Strasbourg. Nothing
has yet transpired as to what that Bill will contain, but I can see that many are
sceptical about it – after all, who can trust the protections of a Bill of
Rights drafted by this generation of lawmakers?
“We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any
man either Justice or Right”
Yet, as we know only to well, the Magna Carta celebrants are
in the business of doing exactly the opposite.
