Does posting Article 61 of Magna Carta make business exempt from lockdown? Fact Check

Rumours on social media claim that UK businesses that display article or “clause” 61 of the Magna Carta at their business during the second UK lockdown cannot be forced to close and are exempt from any fines that may occur as a result of staying open.

FALSE

Examples on social media read –

If you own a business and display article 61 of the Magna Carta in your windows you can’t be fined or forced to close your business.
Vital this is retweeted.

Despite the claims, just like posting legal jargon on your Facebook timeline doesn’t supersede Facebook’s terms of service, those that display any part of the Magna Carta in their windows in the hope that it will somehow supersede (or provide any type of loophole around) common British law will be disappointed to learn that it is highly unlikely to have any effect.

The Magna Carta is a charter of liberties granted to “free men” in England in 1215, signed by King John of England under the threat of civil war. However once civil war did break out in England, the charter was subsequently altered and reissued several times. It is now considered to have formed the basis for many fundamental concepts of law that we still see today, both in England and around the world.

With that said, cherry picking articles and clauses from the Magna Carta in an attempt to legally justify otherwise illegal behaviour is nothing new. In the past, many have tried using the Magna Carta as a legal justification for any number of illegal pursuits, from not paying taxes to avoiding arrest during protests.

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Despite the persistence of the belief that the Magna Carta can be used to alleviate the punitive consequences of breaking the law, there are no cases in modern history in England (that we could find) where a British court’s decision rested solely on an interpretation of the Magna Carta.

And that’s likely down to a number of factors. For one, only a handful of chapters of the Magna Carta are considered to be valid today. Secondly, most legal experts point to the Magna Carta as being too vague and antiquated to be used by modern British courts to make legal determinations. Regarding previous attempts to use the Magna Carta as a legal justification, legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg said…

There are really only three clauses of the original Magna Carta that are still part of English law today and they are written in such broad terms that the courts can’t really interpret them. They’re not regarded as justiciable.

While the Magna Carta is considered to have helped form many basic and fundamental concepts of British law, such concepts are now typically expressed in more contemporary and clear legislation, meaning a direct reference to the much older and ambiguous charter has become extremely rare, and usually only in the context of aesthetics. This is reflected on the Magna Carta’s entry on the UK legislation website, which demonstrates how little of the charter is directly relevant today from a legal perspective.

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It is course worth noting as well that “clause 61” of the Magna Carta that is oft quoted by those seeking to use the literature to excuse breaking the law was actually removed by the charter’s first revision, which was issued a year after the first, in 1216.

And above all else, a fatal flaw in this frivolous claim is that nothing in the Magna Carta has anything to do with the closure of premises due to public health, so even if someone using this claim to justify keeping a business open during a lockdown did somehow manage to get a court to entertain literature from a 13th century charter, they’d even have less chance of successfully demonstrating that it is applicable in these current circumstances.

Of course the law is largely about interpretation, and there may be many that believe the Magna Carta is indeed valid, as is “clause 61”, and that their situation is relevant to it and can be justified by it. However those should also know that precedent and modern history are not on their side, and as such, attempting to use the Magna Carta to the authorities or in a court of law is not likely to be a successful endeavour.