It’s no wonder Canada’s Conservatives failed to
gain enough seats for a majority in Parliament following the October election. Their campaign slogan (“It’s time for you to get ahead”) had all the karma of a
Walmart store motto: “Save money. Live
Better.”
Thoughts on Canadian Political Culture: Criticisms, Reviews and the Poverty of Parliament
Excavations
... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.
- David Hume
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
Lessons for Xi Jinping: Habeas Corpus and “The Petition of Right” (1628)
And where also by the statute called, ‘The
Great Charter of the Liberties of England[1],’
it is declared and enacted that no freeman may be taken or imprisoned or
imprisoned or be deseised of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs,
or be outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful
judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land:
And in the eight and twentieth year of the
reign of King Edward the Third, it was declared and enacted by authority of
Parliament, that no man of what estate or condition that he be, should be put
out of his lands or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor
put to death, without being brought to answer by due process of law:
Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said
statutes, and other the good laws and statutes of your realm, to that end
provided, divers of your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any
cause showed, and when for their deliverance they were brought before your
justices, by your Majesty’s writs of
Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order, and
their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer; no cause was
certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty’s special command,
signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to
several prisons, without being charged with anything which they might make
answer according to the law ….[2]
They do therefore humbly pray your Most
Excellent Majesty, that no man be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan,
benevolence, tax, or such like charge without common consent by Act of
Parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take such oath, or to
give attendance, or be confined, or otherwise molested, or disquieted
concerning the same, or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman, in any such
manner as is before-mentioned, be imprisoned or detained …[3]
“The
Petition of Right” (excerpts), June 7, 1628
[1] A reference to the Magna Carta, signed by King John on 15
June 1215.
[2] Samuel R. Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan
Revolution, 1628-1660 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889 [Franklin Classics
Reprint]), pp. 2,3. Emphasis added.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Milton to Xi Jinping (a tweet)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)