All that you wanted to know about the “Magna Carta”

The Magna Carta (Latin) also called as “The Great Charter” celebrated its 800th anniversary on the 15th June 2015. Signed in Runnymede, near Windsor between King John and a group of rebel barons the agreement was an effort to stabilize the relations between the King and the group of barons. Markedly, the King did not sign the document for the love of liberty or equality but under the duress to buy peace with the barons.
The Charter which became a “harbinger” for the idea of liberty across the world was a religio-political document which the promised protection of Church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice and limitations to feudal payment to the Crown. Though later on declared by the Pope as being void which led to a Civil War in the Medieval Britain, the Charter was signed year after year starting from 1215 until political tensions arose.
The Magna Carta is symbolic of the struggles between authority and law over the centuries and continues to have a powerful iconic status in the British society, being cited by politicians and lawyers in support of constitutional politics. “No man shall be arrested or imprisoned except by the judgement of their equals and by the law of land”, the Charter emphasized that no man, not even the King is above the law. As Americans celebrate their 239thyear of independence on the 4th July it owes to the Magna Carta for the statute of “liberty and equality to all” constituted in the American Constitution.

[author image=”http://www.aapkatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Shreya-Singh.jpg” ]I am Shreya, a student from Delhi University has just graduated in English Literature. With her flair about writing and traveling, she has also worked the eminent University Express.[/author]

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