Magna Carta originals reunite for 800th anniversary

Four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta are on display in London as Britain begins 800th anniversary celebrations of the globally significant contract, Abcnet.au reports.

Considered the cornerstone of modern democracy, liberty, justice and the rule of law, the 1215 English charter forms the basis for legal systems around the world, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the US Constitution.


About 1,200 people, drawn from a ballot, have won the chance to see the unification event at the British Library,
which brings together its two originals with those of Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals.


The four parchments will then be on private display in the UK parliament, marking the start of a year of celebrations for a document that still has resonance eight centuries later.


"No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go and send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers by the law of the land," the document states in Latin.


"To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice."