John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD):
Article XXIX of the Magna Carta is an important one, on imprisonment contrary to law and the administration of justice:
"NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right."
I emphasise the last sentence of that article, the key to which, as I see it, is that people are equal before the law, and that one's wealth should not affect how one is seen by the legal system. There are lots of debates going on about access to justice, and last week I raised the issue of the balance between two different cases, and of how the people involved in them were treated. One case involved a particularly wealthy person and the other a relatively poor person, and I will come on to that later because it is important.
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