Magna Carta Has Neither Legal Or Symbolic Significance In Australia Today
“Magna Carta has neither legal nor symbolic significance in Australia today.”
The Magna Carta was an important legal document in feudal England, where despotism oppressed the masses. Magna Carta, meaning ‘The Great Charter’, is one of the most renowned documents in the world, it was originally issued by King John of England as a response to political pressure from revolting barons in 1215. The Magna Carta established the principle that all men, including the monarchy, was subject to the law thus preventing arbitrary abuse of power. The Magna Carta remains the cornerstone of the British Constitution which led to the formation of the Australian parliament and its Constitution. However, in 21st Century Australia, the Magna Carta remains a largely futile text of archaic legislation, which nevertheless is filled with rich symbolism. One of the most poignant and famous articles of the Magna Carta (clause 29) that “No free …show more content…
man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled…To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.” Unfortunately, my grandfather, Moshe Rosenblum, was ruined by a totalitarian rule where he was not privy to fundamental rights and the tyranny of Adolf Hitler subjected his entire family and nation to a Holocaust and nightmare of ineffable and unimaginable proportions.
“The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews [as well as other peoples] by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” The Nazi party, led by Hitler, began to rule in 1933, they believed the Aryan race was superior and that ‘inferior’ Jews and other such peoples needed to be annihilated to ethnically cleanse European soil (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2015).
This horrific genocide began with university quota limits for Jews and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which stripped Jews of German citizenship to persecutions by pogroms and mass deportations to forced labour and death camps. Hitler warranted this racist legislation in Mein Kampf (1924), his defamatory work, “A Jew is and remains a typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favourable medium invites him. And the effect of his existence is also like that of spongers: wherever he appears, the host people die out. …The Jew today is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany.
”
In this world of unparalleled hatred my grandfather survived; Jews, Soviet POWs, Slavics, Communists, Socialists, the mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s witnesses, Freemasons, gypsies and homosexuals were brutalised with shocking numbers of 15-20 million victims who were either imprisoned or murdered. Moshe was viciously beaten and imprisoned in the Bialystok Ghetto, Longzom Jail, Stuttoff, Buchenwald and Auschwitz because his race was repulsive to a tyrannical ruler. The Nazis treated my grandfather like cattle and etched upon his bruised and beaten flesh, 171846. He was subject to back breaking hard labour and was part of the rare 1 in 20 people who passed through Auschwitz- Birkenau and survived. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi death and labour camps and the most efficient mass killing site ever created. It was there that my grandfather was starved, beaten and tortured because of his race. Moshe was witness daily to the largest scale genocide ever perpetrated as he woke and saw smoke rise from the chimney of the crematorium where bodies were burnt after those people were systematically murdered in gas chambers. My grandfather saw shoes, piles of little shoes that were stripped from little bodies that once belonged to a little boy or girl who were murdered. He had witnessed, while in hiding, the massacre of 2000 Jews in the Bialystok Great Synagogue. The Nazis herded his friends into the synagogue and set fire, until all that remained was the dome roof and the foul stench of rotting, burning flesh. My grandfather lost his entire extended family, both his parents and two of his brothers to the Holocaust who were murdered in the death camps of Blyzin and Majdanek.
When the war ended in 1945 Moshe was hospitalised in a sanatorium for 5 years as he was riddled with tuberculosis. Although he left Auschwitz, Auschwitz never left him. The war defined his life and the way he lived it. I never saw my grandfather without a jumper, even in summer, as he was forever afraid of the piercing cold he experienced in Auschwitz. Moshe was vigilant as to not waste any precious food, he also would return to the horrors when he saw a chimney or a child's shoe. Regardless of his tormented mind, he saw all of his grandchildren as jewels and treasures, glimmering against the soot and dust of that which has been destroyed.
My grandfather migrated to Australia in 1950 as a refugee. Growing up he gave us a warm sense of pride as Australians with the freedoms and liberties it afforded us, which he unfortunately was deprived of in his youth. Although the Magna Carta’s roots only gave rights to ‘free men,’ which excluded the villein majority, these principles led to the British Bill of Rights in 1689 which gave rights to all men. These rights granted freedom from royal taxation, the ability to petition the monarch, the power to elect members of parliament and freedom of speech. These liberties were the influential ethical basis in the forming of the United States Constitution in 1797 and were motivators in the French Revolution. Australia as part of the Commonwealth based its constitution on British legislature in 1900 which was informed by the Magna Carta’s fundamental concepts; Australia’s Westminster system of government has a separation of powers which prevents corruption and abuse of power. Furthermore the Magna Carta has a concrete legal effect in Australia. Jurisdictions with Imperial Acts like Victoria and Queensland enact chapter 29 of the Magna Carta. While Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania theoretically have most of the Magna Carta in force. However this legislature is largely useless in current law as the articles have to be suitable for modern conditions. The Magna Carta’s legacy is evident in common law. Today it is noticeably realised in the fundamental right to access justice. In the High Court of Australia in 1925, Isaacs J proclaimed that the Magna Carta is the “groundwork of all our Constitutions.”
It was in response to the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust that the members of the UN drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, one the declaration’s key thinkers, labelled it as the ‘international Magna Carta’ for human kind , therefore showing that the origin of the declaration’s ideas was codified in the historic articles of 1215. It was these ideals and principles which granted my grandfather and his family the freedom and rights which belong to all mankind.
The Magna Carta has become a symbol of hope for fighting against oppression and injustice. It is this imperative context that this archaic literature remains not only relevant, but a vital core element of the free world. In 2014 I went to Poland to honour those who did not survive and a world that is no more. As I stood in Majdanek there is an eerie monument which stands as a cautionary testament to what one man can do without being governed by laws and principles, it is an enormous pile of exposed human ash and bone. Upon entering Auschwitz I passed through an infamous gate, inscribed is the slogan “arbeit macht free” this is German for “work makes free,” this was the antithesis of freedom- forced labour. We can say “never again” as humans, however human rights are violated daily. With the principles of the Magna Carta we become empowered as Australians to fight terrorism, tyranny and lack of rudimentary civil freedoms in countries like Syria, North Korea and can combat terror groups such as ISIS. In the past, the knowledge of genocides and injustices were limited and broadcasting was not readily available in many instances. Digital and social media have given us information on international events and has highlighted the civil rights issues that infect humanity. ISIS has maliciously used the internet to share their gruesome atrocities like public beheading and attacks. Despite our awareness, we remain relatively powerless against the forces that threaten our democracy. This battle against oppression and injustice remains as relevant today as it did 800 years ago.
The Magna Carta was an important legal document in feudal England, where despotism oppressed the masses. Magna Carta, meaning ‘The Great Charter’, is one of the most renowned documents in the world, it was originally issued by King John of England as a response to political pressure from revolting barons in 1215. The Magna Carta established the principle that all men, including the monarchy, was subject to the law thus preventing arbitrary abuse of power. The Magna Carta remains the cornerstone of the British Constitution which led to the formation of the Australian parliament and its Constitution. However, in 21st Century Australia, the Magna Carta remains a largely futile text of archaic legislation, which nevertheless is filled with rich symbolism. One of the most poignant and famous articles of the Magna Carta (clause 29) that “No free …show more content…
man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled…To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.” Unfortunately, my grandfather, Moshe Rosenblum, was ruined by a totalitarian rule where he was not privy to fundamental rights and the tyranny of Adolf Hitler subjected his entire family and nation to a Holocaust and nightmare of ineffable and unimaginable proportions.
“The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews [as well as other peoples] by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” The Nazi party, led by Hitler, began to rule in 1933, they believed the Aryan race was superior and that ‘inferior’ Jews and other such peoples needed to be annihilated to ethnically cleanse European soil (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2015).
This horrific genocide began with university quota limits for Jews and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which stripped Jews of German citizenship to persecutions by pogroms and mass deportations to forced labour and death camps. Hitler warranted this racist legislation in Mein Kampf (1924), his defamatory work, “A Jew is and remains a typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favourable medium invites him. And the effect of his existence is also like that of spongers: wherever he appears, the host people die out. …The Jew today is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany.
”
In this world of unparalleled hatred my grandfather survived; Jews, Soviet POWs, Slavics, Communists, Socialists, the mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s witnesses, Freemasons, gypsies and homosexuals were brutalised with shocking numbers of 15-20 million victims who were either imprisoned or murdered. Moshe was viciously beaten and imprisoned in the Bialystok Ghetto, Longzom Jail, Stuttoff, Buchenwald and Auschwitz because his race was repulsive to a tyrannical ruler. The Nazis treated my grandfather like cattle and etched upon his bruised and beaten flesh, 171846. He was subject to back breaking hard labour and was part of the rare 1 in 20 people who passed through Auschwitz- Birkenau and survived. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi death and labour camps and the most efficient mass killing site ever created. It was there that my grandfather was starved, beaten and tortured because of his race. Moshe was witness daily to the largest scale genocide ever perpetrated as he woke and saw smoke rise from the chimney of the crematorium where bodies were burnt after those people were systematically murdered in gas chambers. My grandfather saw shoes, piles of little shoes that were stripped from little bodies that once belonged to a little boy or girl who were murdered. He had witnessed, while in hiding, the massacre of 2000 Jews in the Bialystok Great Synagogue. The Nazis herded his friends into the synagogue and set fire, until all that remained was the dome roof and the foul stench of rotting, burning flesh. My grandfather lost his entire extended family, both his parents and two of his brothers to the Holocaust who were murdered in the death camps of Blyzin and Majdanek.
When the war ended in 1945 Moshe was hospitalised in a sanatorium for 5 years as he was riddled with tuberculosis. Although he left Auschwitz, Auschwitz never left him. The war defined his life and the way he lived it. I never saw my grandfather without a jumper, even in summer, as he was forever afraid of the piercing cold he experienced in Auschwitz. Moshe was vigilant as to not waste any precious food, he also would return to the horrors when he saw a chimney or a child's shoe. Regardless of his tormented mind, he saw all of his grandchildren as jewels and treasures, glimmering against the soot and dust of that which has been destroyed.
My grandfather migrated to Australia in 1950 as a refugee. Growing up he gave us a warm sense of pride as Australians with the freedoms and liberties it afforded us, which he unfortunately was deprived of in his youth. Although the Magna Carta’s roots only gave rights to ‘free men,’ which excluded the villein majority, these principles led to the British Bill of Rights in 1689 which gave rights to all men. These rights granted freedom from royal taxation, the ability to petition the monarch, the power to elect members of parliament and freedom of speech. These liberties were the influential ethical basis in the forming of the United States Constitution in 1797 and were motivators in the French Revolution. Australia as part of the Commonwealth based its constitution on British legislature in 1900 which was informed by the Magna Carta’s fundamental concepts; Australia’s Westminster system of government has a separation of powers which prevents corruption and abuse of power. Furthermore the Magna Carta has a concrete legal effect in Australia. Jurisdictions with Imperial Acts like Victoria and Queensland enact chapter 29 of the Magna Carta. While Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania theoretically have most of the Magna Carta in force. However this legislature is largely useless in current law as the articles have to be suitable for modern conditions. The Magna Carta’s legacy is evident in common law. Today it is noticeably realised in the fundamental right to access justice. In the High Court of Australia in 1925, Isaacs J proclaimed that the Magna Carta is the “groundwork of all our Constitutions.”
It was in response to the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust that the members of the UN drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, one the declaration’s key thinkers, labelled it as the ‘international Magna Carta’ for human kind , therefore showing that the origin of the declaration’s ideas was codified in the historic articles of 1215. It was these ideals and principles which granted my grandfather and his family the freedom and rights which belong to all mankind.
The Magna Carta has become a symbol of hope for fighting against oppression and injustice. It is this imperative context that this archaic literature remains not only relevant, but a vital core element of the free world. In 2014 I went to Poland to honour those who did not survive and a world that is no more. As I stood in Majdanek there is an eerie monument which stands as a cautionary testament to what one man can do without being governed by laws and principles, it is an enormous pile of exposed human ash and bone. Upon entering Auschwitz I passed through an infamous gate, inscribed is the slogan “arbeit macht free” this is German for “work makes free,” this was the antithesis of freedom- forced labour. We can say “never again” as humans, however human rights are violated daily. With the principles of the Magna Carta we become empowered as Australians to fight terrorism, tyranny and lack of rudimentary civil freedoms in countries like Syria, North Korea and can combat terror groups such as ISIS. In the past, the knowledge of genocides and injustices were limited and broadcasting was not readily available in many instances. Digital and social media have given us information on international events and has highlighted the civil rights issues that infect humanity. ISIS has maliciously used the internet to share their gruesome atrocities like public beheading and attacks. Despite our awareness, we remain relatively powerless against the forces that threaten our democracy. This battle against oppression and injustice remains as relevant today as it did 800 years ago.