"The appearance of ‘rights’ as a set of popular propositions limiting the sovereign is usually traced to Magna Carta in 1215, although that document had nothing to do with the liberty of individual citizens: it was signed by a feudal king who was feuding with thuggish barons, and who was forced to accede to their demands. It had two symbols of a constitutional settlement, however: firstly, it limited the power of the State (in a very elementary way, since the King was the...
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"The appearance of ‘rights’ as a set of popular propositions limiting the sovereign is usually traced to Magna Carta in 1215, although that document had nothing to do with the liberty of individual citizens: it was signed by a feudal king who was feuding with thuggish barons, and who was forced to accede to their demands. It had two symbols of a constitutional settlement, however: firstly, it limited the power of the State (in a very elementary way, since the King was the State), and secondly it contained some felicitous phrases which gradually entered the common law and worked their rhetorical magic down the centuries. For example.......the King promised, ‘To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay justice or right.’ This was the forerunner – what might be called the King John version – of Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, ‘Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time.’
Magna Carta was reinvented as guarantor of these basic rights by English Parliamentarians as they struggled to share power with a king who insisted on absolute rule. Their Petition of Right, in 1628, was the first legislative attempt to entrench the liberty of the subject.
Extract from “Crimes Against Humanity –The Struggle for Global Justice” Penguin, 2007, p.2-3."
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