I saw the Magna Carta this summer (comments on the Padilla case)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

One of the four surviving original copies is in a glass case in England's Salisbury Cathedral. The original is in Latin, but there's a modern English translation posted, and several items struck me in light of Bush's recent defiance of the Constitution:

(Paragraph 38): "In future, no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unupported statement without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it."
(Paragraph 39): "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned or stripped of his rights or possessions or outlawed or exiled or deprived of his standing in any other way, no will we proceed with force against him or send others to do so except by lawful judgment of his equals."
(Paragraph 40): To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay rights or justice.
(Paragraph 52): "To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights without lawful judgment of his equals, we will at once restore them."

In case you're fuzzy on English history, the Magna Carta was drawn up by noblemen in 1215 to protest the tyranny of King John (the "Prince John" in the Robin Hood stories). They forced him to sign and abide by it at a place called Runnymede.

The Magna Carta has stood as one of the founding documents of English and American common law.

Re-read these paragraphs and consider them in the light of the Padilla case, the prison camp at Guantanamo, and "extraordinary rendition." :cry:

[Solly Mack]

1. K/R

[Orrex]

2. There you go with your pre-9/11 thinking again

You remember? The Day That Changed Everything?

[dipsydoodle]

3. JFK Memorial is at Runnymede too.

John F. Kennedy Memorial

JFK Memorial designed by Geoffrey Jellico The British memorial to the assassinated President Kennedy was jointly dedicated in May, 1965, by Queen Elizabeth II and Jacqueline Kennedy, prior to a reception for the Kennedy family at Windsor Castle. The memorial consists of a Portland stone memorial tablet inscribed with the famous quote from his Inaugural Address:

"Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty".

Visitors reach the memorial by treading a steep path of irregular granite steps, intended to symbolise a pilgrimage. The area of ground that the memorial is situated on was given as a gift to the United States of America by the People of Britain, and as such it is American territory. (It is an extraterritorial site in roughly the same sort of way that an embassy is considered to be. A similar situation exists in Hawaii, where the spot on which James Cook died has been given to Britain.) It is maintained by the Kennedy Memorial Trust, which also sponsors educational scholarships for British students to attend university in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runnymede

Geographically it's more or less adjacent to Heathrow Airport and Windsor Castle.

[madrchsod]

4. we have a copy here in the usa

The National Archives Building, known informally as Archives I, located north of the National Mall on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC, opened as its original headquarters in 1935. It holds the original copies of the three main formative documents of the United States and its government: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as a Magna Carta confirmed by Edward I in 1297 that is presented courtesy of the Perot Foundation.

[mmonk]

5. Can we draw up another one?

[myrna minx]

6. K&R.

[Gruenemann]

7. What this means is...

We've gone back to pre-1215.

Welcome to the middle ages.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Yes, the Magna Carta was a milestone in legal history

It was the first statement that even rulers are NOT above the law.

It predates our Bill of Rights by over 600 years.

What the Bush administration is doing is overturning nearly 800 years of Anglo-American common law.