"Magna Carta was a reassertion of the limits of arbitrary executive power. So it was a seminal moment in the development of the rule of law and due process. The issue and re-issue of Magna Carta during the 13th Century is an inspiring history that reflects a distinctly English revulsion against all forms of executive abuse and insistence on due process of law. There are those who say that Magna Carta only conferred rights on powerful barons. This is not the whole story. The Charter laid...
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"Magna Carta was a reassertion of the limits of arbitrary executive power. So it was a seminal moment in the development of the rule of law and due process. The issue and re-issue of Magna Carta during the 13th Century is an inspiring history that reflects a distinctly English revulsion against all forms of executive abuse and insistence on due process of law. There are those who say that Magna Carta only conferred rights on powerful barons. This is not the whole story. The Charter laid down a real basis for the limitation of all forms of arbitrary power and did enshrine the principle of the supremacy of the law. Once asserted, that principle could not be limited to a privileged few.
My own favourite part is the prohibition on excessive ‘amercements’, or disproportionate and extortionate fines in Clause 20. Clause 20 is perhaps the first clear statement of the proportionality principle in English Law. It may seem obvious. But it was important to state the principle of a need for proportionality in the award of fines and other punishments. It has been shown that this principle, constantly reasserted in later centuries, was the real rationale of the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments in the 1689 Bill of Rights. As advocates in the fields of criminal and administrative law we have constant recourse to this principle and Magna Carta remains a source of inspiration in this.
More recently in the Chagos Islanders case we invoked the principle enshrined in Clause 39 that no one should be sent into exile save by due process of law. So it is a living instrument."
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