Magna Carta repealed: nobody notices.

Last week the Law Lords pronounced that the indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial, as practiced by the Government under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, was unlawful. Not content with that, the Law Lords went on to say that: "[This case] calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention."

However, new Home Secretary Charles Clarke and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have both issued statements which can be summarised as "La la la, we're not listening."
Should we be worried, or even unhappy about this? I'd say so, yes. The principle of not imprisoning people unlawfully has been on the statute books for the best part of the last thousand years, since it was formally introduced on the Magna Carta:
"A freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offense, except in accordancewith the degree of the offense; and for a grave offense he shall be amerced inaccordance with the gravity of the offense... and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be impsedexcept by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood."

What does this mean? It means trial by jury before banging someone up. The modern legal interpretation of this phrase is along the lines of "You can't lock someone up unless it either be by action of the law or judgement of their peers in the form of a jury." As the law by which the internees have been locked up has been declared illegal, and no trail by jury has taken place...oh, sod it. Why am I bothering? You've probably stopped reading by now, haven't you?

In the light of this I'd like to ask people to fill in a poll, just to know how you're thinking:

[Poll #406257]

As the Law Lords have ruled that the laws contravene EU Human right legislation, it means that Human Rights lawyers are going to have a field day in fees in the light of the Governments refusal to take action. If I were the sort of fellow who delights in Conspiracy Theories, I'd point out that the law is being driven by the Prime Minister, whose wife is a senior partner with Matrix Churchill - a major human right law office who are an organisation which stands to do Very Well Indeed out of this situation. Happily, the Law Lords have ordered that the cost of paying for appeals against any unlawful imprisonments are to be met by the government - and that is you and me, who cough up the taxes to fund the government. So we'll pay lawyers to challenge the legal framework put in place by the administration who we pay for. Great.

Still, at least Tony and Cherie will have a nice nest-egg for their retirements, won't they?

[Edit: I am surprised to learn that verlaine is only 13 years old.]