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Article: The Metric Martyrs have saved Magna Carta
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- February 27, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2005 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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It is one thing for Lord Falconer to brush aside all the legal
confusion over Prince Charles's wedding plans simply by pronouncing
that they are within the law after all. Quite another thing is the
constitutional elephant trap that the Government has unwittingly
walked into with its Prevention of Terrorism Bill, which will allow
citizens to be placed under house arrest by fiat of the Home
Secretary, Charles Clarke.
This drives a coach and horses through Magna Carta, which rules
that ``no freeman shall be arrested or detained in prison or deprived
of his liberty - except by the judgment of his peers''. And no doubt
Lord Falconer and his colleagues might argue that it would be
ridiculous to ...