Magna Carta

The significance of Magna Carta cannot be understood from a literal reading of a document originally written in Latin in a very different world, writes Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC in this week’s NLJ. Instead, its significance lies in the acceptance of its principles in the intervening centuries. Bindman writes that he is heartened by next year’s 800th anniversary celebrations, but disturbed by the “paradoxical and irrational threat” by the Conservatives, if elected, to seek the repeal of the Human Rights Act.