Magna Carta: A Relic

How often do we note the discrepancy between a foundational document and the practical implementation by its supposed adherents? The Bible, Torah and the Quran each advocate a fairer and kinder reality than called for by those who wear the respective religious badges on their shoulders.

Magna Carta, a secular religious document, is no different. Signed in 1215, the original document between the King and a couple dozen rebel barons tried to put in place some boundaries to the sovereign’s powers. Western liberal democracies, which have gone on to worship Magna Carta, oddly enough do not however meaningfully put it into practice.

That is not entirely all doom and gloom – after all Magna Carta’s anti-Jewish edicts have no place in a modern, pluralistic society. It is nevertheless worth reminding ourselves of two outstanding pillars of the document that we think we implement today, but in fact don’t.

First, the original charter insisted that the state couldn’t charge taxes without the “general consent of the realm”. Today, modern democracies either elect MPs who in turn choose a PM; or they elect Representatives and Senators …. and indirectly also elect a President. These folks do their thing – and charge citizens taxes, which we citizens have not consented to. 

If you think that electing one percent of the state’s employees (the rest being civil servants who aren’t even elected) is synonymous with the approval of the taxes that we pay, you’ve clearly a wild imagination. Electing near-powerless MPs or Representatives is not the same as approving a change in what can be taxed or how much it can be taxed. Hence in part, our de facto tax rates today are several times what they were in the 13th century.

The second lost pillar is the right to a trial by a jury. The US abandoned this principal a while back, exemplified by the erection of Guantanamo Bay – where some 779 people were held without the right to trial. Some detainees were as young as 16. Only 8 ‘guilty’ verdicts came from this farce. More than 40 people have been detained without charge for more than a decade. Not only was this Magna Carta principal abandoned, but Americans were quite supportive of the move, at an astonishing cost to taxpayers of $11m per year per person.

It’s all very good worshipping documents. But if one’s not going to put them, or what one holds dearly about them, into practice, the question needs to be asked – why worship in the first place. What is the fascination with Magna Carta if the modern state taxes whatever it wants without any consent, and denies people the right to a trial by a jury? Why bother?