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2. What is Magna Carta
The Magna Carta is a document that dates back to the year 1215. The name is Latin for 'Great
Charter'. A charter is a written document that defines the rights of a group of people. In this
case the document defined the rights of King John, who ruled England at the time, a group of
wealthy men called barons and the Catholic Church in England. Throughout history the
document's meaning has expanded to include other people as well.

3. Why was it created?
King John ruled at the beginning of the 13th century. He was an unpopular king for a number of reasons. One was
that he was unsuccessful in some battles which made him look like a weak leader. Among these battles were wars over parts of
France which had belonged to England but which France reclaimed during John's reign. When John lost these areas less money
flowed into England through taxes. This, along with continuing expensive battles with France, led John to demand higher taxes
from people in England.
The English barons were not happy about this, not just because they did not want to pay higher taxes but also
because it was the custom in those days for the king to consult with the barons before raising taxes. John raised taxes on many
occasions and even introduced new ones without consulting them.
John also acted against custom by choosing someone to be the Archbishop of Canterbury against the wishes of the
pope who wanted someone else to fill this role. This angered the pope so much that it caused a lot of problems for King John. To
get back in favour with the pope, John gave him the kingdom of England and paid him yearly rent to continue living there. This
gave the barons less control over their land because now it was officially owned by the Church, which made them even angrier.

4. There were other ways in which John acted according to what suited him regardless of its effects on others. His rule was harsh
and unpredictable and lost him the support of many people including the barons and the Catholic bishops. These two powerful groups got
together and wrote a list of things they wanted the king to do, most of which were rights that they wanted him to guarantee them. John
rejected these demands until the barons raised an army against him and overtook London.
This action forced John to negotiate with the barons. In June 1215 he met them in a field near London where they made him sign
a document which contained their list of demands. This document was called the Articles of the Barons but an official version of it called the
Magna Carta was released soon afterwards and copies were distributed throughout the kingdom.
In return for the king's signature on the document the barons agreed to end their hostilities and renew their pledge of allegiance
to him.

5. Magna Carta in the modern age
Today Magna Carta has become a world-
class brand, representing human rights,
democracy and free speech – despite the fact
that the original document makes no mention of
these principles.

6. The modern legal interpretation of Magna Carta
Just three clauses of that statute remain law in England and Wales today. Clause 1 provides that ‘the Church of
England shall be free’. Clause 9 promises that ‘the City of London shall have all the old liberties and customs’ that it had before.
But the best-known remnant is clause 29. Derived from clauses 39 and 40 of the 1215 charter, it says:
No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed,
or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or
by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right.
These are fine principles but they do not stand up well to modern principles of statutory interpretation.
First, does ‘man’ embrace ‘woman’? Yes, because the Interpretation Act 1978 says that ‘words importing the
masculine gender include the feminine’. Next, can anyone who is not a ‘freeman’ claim the rights listed in the first sentence?
Historians tell us that freemen were able to marry or go where they pleased, unlike the rural peasantry or serfs who were
generally bonded to their land and unable to marry without purchasing their lord’s permission. Fortunately, the Human Rights Act
1998 requires all legislation to be given effect in a way that is compatible with human rights. Courts would be expected to
interpret ‘freemen’ as meaning ‘all people

7. The first and the second sentence of
chapter
So the first sentence of clause 29 seems to mean that nobody can be convicted or punished except by the law of
the land. One should not underestimate the importance of such a concession by the King in 1215. ‘There, clearly recognisable,
was the rule of law in embryo,’ observed Lord Bingham, perhaps the most eminent English judge of recent times.In the United
Kingdom, governments would continue to observe the law of the land even if clause 29 of the 1297 statute were repealed. And
yet the rule of law is far from universal. In the spring of 2014, almost 800 years after Magna Carta was granted, we saw protestors
shot dead by military snipers in Kiev, a city at the very borders of Europe. There are several parts of the world in which opponents
of the ruling regime simply ‘disappear’. Their supporters would welcome concessions such as those made by King John in 1215.
The second sentence of chapter 29 was cited by a High Court judge as recently as 2007. Quoting Sir James Holt’s
resonant translation (1965) ‘to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice’, Mr Justice Munby complained
about the time the courts had taken to hear a housing claim, expressing the view that ‘the potential delay here amounted to a
denial of justice in the sense in which that phrase is used in Magna Carta’. Warming to his theme, Munby said there were ‘some
principles that ring down the centuries’. In this respect, he continued, the message of Magna Carta was ‘timeless’.

8. Magna Carta in the United States
This takes us to lands where Magna Carta is revered rather more than in the country of its birth.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.
Article 9, summarising clause 39 of the 1215 charter, says, ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest,
detention or exile’. That, in turn, led directly to the European Convention on Human Rights, which took effect in
1953. Article 5 begins: ‘Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person’. Through the Human Rights Act
1998, article 5 became enforceable against public bodies in the courts of the United Kingdom.
In 1939, when Lincoln Cathedral’s copy of the 1215 charter was put on show at the World Fair in
New York, an estimated 14 million people went to see it in just six months. After war broke out, the cathedral’s
copy was stranded in the United States, leading to the suggestion that the Americans should be allowed to
keep it — or alternatively have it replaced with one of the copies now displayed in the British Library.
It would have been a priceless gift. An American author, writing in 1991, calculated that more than
900 federal and state courts in the United States had cited Magna Carta. In the half-century between 1940 and
1990, the United States Supreme Court had done so in more than sixty cases.
More recently, the highest court in the United States had to decide whether foreign prisoners
detained by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could seek writs of habeas corpus that might lead to
their release. Allowing their appeal in 2008, the court traced that powerful remedy back beyond the United
States constitution of 1789 to what the judges regarded as its origin in clause 39 of Magna Carta. ‘Gradually,
the writ of habeas corpus became the means by which the promise of Magna Carta was fulfilled,’ wrote Justice
Kennedy for the majority.

9. Magna Carta’s broader relevance
Just as with the principles of liberty, the continuing
importance of Magna Carta may also be found in its
broader ideas as they have been reinterpreted over the
centuries. From these, Magna Carta can also be seen as a
foundation of accountability, of popular democracy, and
even of the importance of engaged citizens. The fact that
Magna Carta had precious little (if indeed anything at all)
to say about these things is to miss the point. Historians
have shown that, over time, different generations
reinterpreted Magna Carta’s meaning to match the
dominant ideas of their age.