| | by admin | | posted on 24th April 2021 in Magna Carta 3.1 | | views 2520 | |
Written in 1215, the Magna Carta (or Great Charter) is effectively the first written constitution in European history.
Magna Carta was sealed by King John on 15 June 1215 in southern England and contained sixty-three clauses. The charter was drawn up after his barons rebelled and forced him to accept limits on his authority, following heavy taxation to fund unsuccessful wars in France.
Only weeks later, in August 1215, Pope Innocent III annulled Magna Carta, declaring it null and void because it had been sealed under duress. King John died of dysentery, aged fifty, in October that year.
Over the following centuries, the ideals of Magna Carta gathered momentum and acquired increasing authority, particularly around its central clauses on liberty and justice.
In the 17th century, Magna Carta inspired two defining acts of English legislation. The first was the Petition of Right (1628):
“No free man shall be… imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed]… except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”
The second was the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), which echoed Clauses 39 and 40:
“To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.”
In 1776, rebellious American colonists looked to Magna Carta as a model for their demands for liberty from the English Crown. Its legacy is evident in the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution, particularly in the influence of Clause 39 on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee:
“Nor shall any person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
Although Magna Carta assumed great symbolic importance during the 17th and 18th centuries, at the time of its creation it functioned chiefly as a practical response to a political crisis. The charter primarily protected the interests of elite members of feudal society by reinforcing the barons’ ability to restrain despotic royal behaviour.
Magna Carta was written on durable parchment made from dried sheepskin. Its scribes worked in medieval Latin and used abbreviations to conserve space.
Many copies of the document were distributed to bishops and sheriffs across England. The exact number is unknown, but four survive: one in Lincoln, one in Salisbury, and two in the British Library.
The 800th anniversary of the original charter fell on 15 June 2015. To this day, Magna Carta remains a powerful symbol of liberty against tyranny.
Magna Carta 2.0 was launched by openDemocracy in 2009, which declared:
“Few legal documents resonate in the collective consciousness like Magna Carta. Imposed on King John at Runnymede in 1215 by a consortium of feudal barons, the Great Charter has come to symbolise the idea that collective action is a proper and successful way to protect our rights and freedoms from arbitrary and unaccountable power and the ambitions of an over-powerful, self-seeking and avaricious state. Nearly eight hundred years on, it is an idea we aim to draw inspiration from in an open and democratic way. It is time for Magna Carta 2.0.” “We want to make Magna Carta 2.0 a call to people and organisations of all political persuasions across the country to put a stop to the threats to our liberty, clean up the way we are governed and ensure that the state respects the people. We want to do this now and engage with parliamentary candidates ahead of the next general election over the dangers and what they intend to do about them.”
Magna Carta 2.0 highlighted what it described as six threats to civil liberty:
Magna Carta 2.0 operated for only a few years before the campaign ended.
Magna Carta 3.1 draws its wording directly from the original Great Charter and the following texts:
