Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
Contact Me Subscribe to this blog
beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
800 years ago today, on a Monday that is described as “mid-summer” in England [well according to legend at least] King John of England signed a piece of parchment on the field of Runnymede. The king had absolutely no intention of abiding by the terms dictated by the surrounding lords and barons, indeed, within a year or two he had appealed to the Pope and had the entire document declared invalid and even immoral. But a decade after that, another king was forced again by his followers to re-affirm the document which came to be known as the Magna Carta.
This document wasn’t about freedom or populism -- those lords and barons were steeped in the feudal system, thought their privileges and positions were mandated by God, and would’ve been horrified at the very idea of a “democracy”. What makes it significant is that for the first time a reigning monarch was forced to admit four very basic things that circumscribed the absolute powers of a ruler . The first two impacts the English to this day as the institution of the Church of England was separated from the institution of the monarchy and the City of London was acknowledged as separate entity in the kingdom. But the last two items have reverberated down the centuries in the rule of law as clauses 39 and 40 have become the basis of what we call “habeas corpus” In other words, for the first time the idea was officially proclaimed that someone couldn’t be thrown into jail on a whim, but there had to be a reason, and there had to be a trial by jury to determine guilt or innocence
The original Magna Carta was in and of itself rather insignificant, but it created a precedent for rule by law that was expanded into what we in the Western World call a democratic form of government with checks and balances. As an artifact and as a concept, it is part of the basic foundation of our freedoms.
CEOExpress
