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7. The origin of fundamental rights may be traced back to the year 1215 when the great barons of England, who had assembled at Runnymede, forced from the hands of the unwilling King John the glorious charter of popular liberties known as Magna Carta. The 39th Chapter of this great constitutional document contained the pledge that- "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed......except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land."

Magna Carta was re-affirmed from time to time by successive English monarchs, and in 1354 Edward, III recognised the liberties and customs which the people had enjoyed in the past and declared in Chapter 3 of 28 Edward III that "no man of what estate or condition that he be, shall be put out of land, or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of the law."

8. The expressions "law of the land" 'and "due process of law" which appear in these documents appe,ar to be synonymous and to guarantee that the monarch shall not proceed against the life, liberty or property of a feudal lord except in conformity with the usages of ancient custom or the common law. The object of this chapter of Magna Carta was to prevent the King from acting agajnst the person or property of a baron except by a prosecution or suit instituted or conducted according to the prescribed forms and solemnities for ascertaining the guilt or determining the title to the property. When the feudal system disappeared from England, the procedural protection which was afforded to barons was extended to commoners and Magna Carta became a real charter of liberties for the people of England. In his famous Institutes, Sir Edward Coke expressed the view that Magna Carta had embodied certain fundamental principles of right and justice, and that the common law contained a further expression of the same principles. Magna Carta and the common law, he contended, were the supreme law of the land and controlled both the King and Parliament.