Magna Carta

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, for securing this debate and for introducing it with such eloquence and wisdom. When looking at the 800th anniversary celebrations of Magna Carta, it is important to bear in mind four or five features of the charter which are in danger of being ignored.

First, it is not a democratic document. Democracy is the rule of the people. What Magna Carta does is provide the rule of law. The two are quite different. Happily, Magna Carta introduced the rule of law and, in so doing, it prepared the ground for the liberalism that would eventually prepare the ground for democracy. It has allowed us to consolidate our liberal democracy in the way we have.

Secondly, Magna Carta is the product of the threat of civil war. Some 26 Barons had threatened to take up arms unless King John agreed, but even when he did agree in order to avoid civil war, the Pope voided the document and war broke out. It was reissued after King John’s death. In other words, it tells us something very English while at the same time something very universal about history. It did not come unasked and it did not come without the threat of violence, rather it came about as the result of an enormous amount of pressure building up on the king of the day.

Thirdly, it does not talk in terms of general legal principles, which again is a very English way of approaching the problem. It deals with specific grievances, to which specific responses are made in the context of the just thing to do. These are then generalised and translated into large-scale universal legal and moral principles.

Fourthly, we should not forget that in clause 20 it reiterates the medieval Christian principle that human needs must be given priority over everything else, which is why it says, for example, that if a man commits an offence, the King should fine him, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood. A merchant may not be deprived of his merchandise and a villein or a worker may not be deprived of the instruments of his husbandry. His livelihood is his natural right which may never be trampled upon.

The other thing it does very explicitly is in clause 16. It talks about how people who owe money to the Jews should be treated, and goes on to say that non-Jews should be treated in exactly the same way. This establishes an important principle which counters any form of anti-Semitism. At that time, that was an extraordinary contribution, and we should not ignore it and simply talk about democracy.

Finally, it ensures the freedom of the Church. The King assures the barons that not only will the Church be left free to practise its own liturgy but that there will be no interference in its elections.

If these are some of the important distinguishing features of this historic document, the question is how to celebrate its 800^th anniversary. Why are we celebrating it in the first instance? The reason is twofold. First, it is to reaffirm and deepen our own commitment to the rule of law, which, as we know from the experience of the past forty years, is constantly in danger of being eroded. It is intended to remind us of the great tradition to which we belong and of how we can continue to affirm the heritage that we cherish.

The second objective is to spread awareness of the rule of law in the rest of the world, and, if I may be a little devious, to affirm our soft power. It reminds the world that we have achieved something very significant in our history of which the world should take note. If these are our two objectives—to reaffirm and deepen our own commitment to the rule of law and to affirm the commitment to the rest of the world and in so doing to increase our soft power—the rest of what I am going to say follows.

Take the first objective. How do we deepen and reaffirm our own commitment? Exhibitions are all right. People will come and people will go. We need to catch young people and get them to realise what our history has been about, what the rule of law is about and what constraints it imposes upon executive power. Therefore we should be organising lectures and seminars in schools and in major cities up and down the country, encouraging local events and holding a national essay competition, as has happened in some other countries in relation to other events. Continuing with the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, made, I favour an annual lecture in Westminster Hall where the two Houses can meet to take stock of where we are in the field of the rule of law. It may not be entirely inappropriate. It will allow the two Houses to meet regularly as well as provide an occasion to take a moral and political audit of where we stand at any given time.

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I have two suggestions. I hope they are not presumptuous but worth considering. First, the British Council should be asked to take an active role in sponsoring and establishing annual lectures in key countries, designed to explore further the idea of the rule of law. If I may be even more ambitious—I do not think we are that short of money—I should have thought that the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta was an occasion in our history where we might institute a prize comparable to the Nobel Prize, given by the British people through the agency of the British Government, to the person who, during the particular year, has contributed the most to establishing the rule of law. Some such imaginative idea equivalent in importance to the Nobel Prize would be a worthy tribute to this great event.