Magna Carta celebrates 800th anniversary

Magna Carta serves as the base for English law and civil liberties and deals with justice and human rights.

London

Queen Elizabeth II lead commemorations to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta—Great Charter-- which ascertains that the king is under the law. A commemorative statue of Queen Elizabeth II has also been unveiled beside the River Thames in Surrey as part of event. The 13ft bronze sculpture at Runnymede Pleasure Grounds shows the Queen in full Garter Robes.

Magna Carta serves as the base for English law and civil liberties and deals with justice and human rights.

The commemoration was held on the meadow in Runnymede, south England, where on June 15, 1215 the queen's distant predecessor King John sealed the foundation document for Western parliamentary democracy.

Addressing the crowd Cameron said it was modern Britons’ duty to safeguard its “momentous achievement.”

He added that the charter had "shaped the world for the best part of a millennium. Here in Britain, ironically -- the place where those ideas were first set out -- the good name of human rights has sometimes become distorted and devalued," Cameron said.

 "What happened here eight centuries ago is as relevant today as it was then. The seeds sown here have grown throughout the world. In America; in India with Gandhi and South Africa with Nelson Mandela," he added. 

Cameron's Conservative government is currently locked in a debate about Britain's human rights legislation.

The party has promised to repeal the existing Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into British law, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

But opponents accuse him of trying to undermine rights. Cameron’s Conservative government wants to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights, a move opponents fear could weaken key protections.

The Foreign Secretary and Conservative MP for Runnymede, Philip Hammond, who was also at the unveiling, told the invited guests that the Queen was the "ultimate refinement" of constitutional monarchy.

 "While John represented arguably the worst of monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II represents undoubtedly the best of monarchy," he said.

 In a Facebook post, he warned that criminals were abusing the current system "with spurious appeal after spurious appeal" and that Britain could not deport "dangerous foreign terror suspects".

 "Let's put human rights right," he said.

 Campaigners have warned that repealing the Human Rights Act would be a step back for Britain.