Magna Carta

For ... the exorbitances of the Lords: they are to such an height aspired, that contrary to all precedents, the free commoners of England are imprisoned, fined and condemned by them (their incompetent, illegal, unequal, improper judges) against the express letter of Magna Carta chapter 29 (so often urged and used): that no free man of England "shall be passed upon, tried, or condemned, but by the lawful judgement of his equals, or by the law of the land", which, as says Sir Edward Coke in his exposition of Magna Carta, p. 28, last line, is "per pares, by his peers, that is, by his equals".

Due process of law actually stretches back to the year 1215 ... Included among the restrictions on power to which King John acceded in the Magna Carta—the Great Charter—was a prohibition against the exercise of arbitrary seizure of people or their property by government officials:

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, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

The importance ... was emphasized ... in Klopfer v. North Carolina (1967):

We hold here that the right to a speedy trial is as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment. That right has its roots at the very foundation of our English law heritage. Its first articulation in modern jurisprudence appears to have been made in Magna Carta (1215), wherein it was written, "We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right"; but evidence of recognition of the right to speedy justice in even earlier times is found in the Assize of Clarendon (1166).

In English history, the barons had extracted the principle of due process of law from King John, in 1215, in the Magna Carta. Clause 39 ... guaranteed,

No free man may be taken or imprisoned, or ousted of his lands, or outlawed, or banished, or hurt in any way; nor will we [the king] go against him, nor send our officers against him, save by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

In other words, under the principles of due process of law ("the law of the land") no free man could be put in prison and held there without legal justification.

[T]he concept [of habeas corpus] is generally assumed to have been part of the common-law tradition at the time of Magna Carta ... Article 39 states: "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will we go upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law." ... Magna Carta assumed political and legal prominence ... when it was reinterpreted ... by ... Sir Edward Coke ... The reinterpretation ... had a profound impact on the American colonies, the charters for which were drafted during this period.

James [I] needed money, so he summoned Parliament in 1610, but reluctant members drew up a petition of grievances. Coke declared, "I must fly to Magna Carta and entreat explanation of his Majesty. Magna Carta is called ... The Charter of Liberty because it maketh freeman. When the King says he cannot allow our liberties of right, this strikes at the root." James fumed against Parliament, saying "I am surprised that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution to come into existence."

Trial by Jury draws heavily on the Magna Carta, an early 13th-century document signed by King John, ... through which the English nobility protected itself against the power of the Crown. The document is widely viewed as a milestone in the evolution of human liberty ... Spooner stated,

That the trial by jury is all that has been claimed for it ... is proved both by the history and the language of the Great Charter of English Liberties, to which we are to look for a true definition of the trial by jury, and of which the guaranty for that trial is the vital, and most memorable, part.

Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation and promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original, inherent, indefeasible natural rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of King John, sword in hand. And peradventure it must be one day, sword in hand, again rescued and preserved from total destruction and oblivion.

The sense of man's worth as an individual child of God finds expression in the Old Testament ... the New Testament ... And ... in classical Greece and Rome. But for the political implementation of these ideas, one must look to English history in particular. There was a foreshadowing of them in Magna Carta—although one could hardly call Magna Carta a democratic document. Nevertheless it did provide that "No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or banished, or in any way destroyed ... except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

Lane ... argues that the West was exposed to the ideas of liberty that would ... lead to its ascendancy through contacts with Muslim traders and scholars ... Spanish Catholics ... would not give up the liberty they had enjoyed under Islamic rule ... They demanded and got documents guaranteeing their freedoms. Ahmad adds that Magna Carta, to which Westerners trace the beginnings of the idea of limited government, resulted from pressure by English nobles who had returned from the Crusades, where they had learned that the Muslim leader Saladin was bound by the law the same as any other citizen.