Magna Carta's Fading Roots: Why "If It Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It" Still Matters
Imagine a steep hillside covered in ancient trees. Their roots grip the soil, holding the earth firm against wind and rain. For eight centuries, one particular tree - planted at Runnymede in 1215 - has helped stabilise the slope of Western liberty.
Its deepest taproot is the principle that no one, not even the most powerful ruler, stands above the law. We call that tree Magna Carta.
Today, supposedly well-meaning gardeners keep pruning and reshaping it, convinced they are making it stronger.
Yet with each cut, some roots loosen. The hillside trembles. And the old adage whispers its warning: If it isn't broken, don't fix it - because there comes a point when constant fixing becomes the thing that finally breaks it.
The Original Root System
In 1215, King John of England ruled with caprice, not caring about the consequences of his actions. He levied crushing taxes, seized property without cause, and denied justice to those who displeased him.
Sound familiar?
Rebel barons forced him to seal Magna Carta at Runnymede meadow. Most of its 63 clauses addressed immediate feudal grievances - payments, inheritances, trading rights, and local customs.
Yet a handful of clauses outlived the disputes that produced them.
Clause 39, later incorporated into Clause 29 of the 1297 reissue, became the document's enduring legacy:
"No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined... except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."
Magna Carta was not a modern bill of rights, nor was it a free-speech charter. Its deeper significance lay elsewhere. It established the principle that government power should be constrained by general and predictable rules rather than exercised according to the preferences of rulers. The king himself stood under the law.
Only three clauses technically remain on the statute books today. Yet Magna Carta's true influence was never confined to legislation. Its ideas flowed into English common law, habeas corpus, due process, parliamentary government, and the broader rule-of-law tradition that spread throughout the English-speaking world. Constitutions in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States all draw indirect nourishment from that same root system.
For centuries, the tree required remarkably little redesign. It grew gradually through precedent, custom, and restraint.
The Wisdom of Leaving Things Alone
Modern societies often assume that newer means better. Yet institutions that survive for centuries do so because they have already endured tests that would have destroyed weaker systems. They contain accumulated wisdom that may not always be obvious to later generations.
A reform can appear harmless when viewed in isolation. A single amendment here. A new regulatory power there. Each change may seem sensible on its own. The danger is that no one fully understands how all the pieces interact until much later.
The old saying, If it isn't broken, don't fix it, is not an argument against progress. It is an argument for humility. Some structures endure precisely because previous generations learned hard lessons that later generations have forgotten.
The Temptation to Improve
Modern legislatures cannot resist tinkering. Hate-speech laws, online harms legislation, and expanding regulatory frameworks often arrive with admirable intentions: protecting vulnerable groups, reducing incitement, and promoting social harmony.
Yet each new intervention raises an important question: does it reinforce the principle of equal and predictable law, or does it increase the discretionary power of officials to determine which speech, beliefs, or opinions are acceptable?
The concern is not merely what today's governments might do. It is what future governments might do once the precedent has been established.
The Canadian Combatting Hate Act provides a modern day example. The legislation repeals the long-standing "good faith" religious defence contained in Canada's hate-propaganda provisions. For decades, that defence protected sincere expressions of opinion based on religious texts.
Supporters maintain that ordinary religious teaching remains protected and that the reform simply closes a loophole. Critics, including religious leaders and civil-liberties advocates, argue that removing the defence increases legal uncertainty surrounding traditional religious expression. Whether those concerns prove justified remains to be seen, but the debate itself illustrates the tension between expanding regulation and preserving long-standing safeguards.
Pruning Visible in Real Cases
Australia offered an earlier glimpse of this tension in 2019. Rugby star Israel Folau posted an Instagram message paraphrasing Biblical passages concerning sin and salvation. Rugby Australia subsequently terminated his contract for breaching its code of conduct.
Folau argued that he was expressing sincerely held religious beliefs. Others argued that his comments were harmful and incompatible with professional sporting values. The legal dispute eventually settled, but the controversy highlighted a growing question throughout Western societies: where should the boundary lie between freedom of expression and institutional enforcement of cultural norms?
Similar debates have emerged in Britain, where street preachers, religious activists, and political campaigners have occasionally found themselves investigated under public-order legislation. Critics argue that the appearance of unequal enforcement has damaged confidence in official neutrality. Supporters contend that authorities are simply responding to complex social realities and competing rights.
Whatever one's view, public trust depends heavily on the belief that laws are applied impartially. Once citizens begin to suspect that enforcement depends on who is speaking rather than what is being said, confidence in the rule of law begins to erode.
The Hillside Begins to Slip
Remove enough stabilising trees and gravity eventually takes over. Soil washes away in the first heavy rain.
In constitutional terms, that rain may take the form of cultural conflict, economic stress, demographic change, or political crisis. The danger is not merely the loss of a particular freedom. It is the gradual erosion of trust that the same rules apply equally to everyone.
That trust is the soil from which democratic legitimacy grows.
We are not yet facing a landslide. YET.
Still, the underlying question remains. Are we strengthening the roots of impartial law, or are we slowly replacing them with a system that relies increasingly on administrative " discretion" and divided social opinion?
Time to Stop Over-Gardening
The genius of Magna Carta was never perfection. It was restraint.
The men at Runnymede understood something timeless: power rarely presents itself as dangerous. It usually arrives promising efficiency, fairness, safety, or progress. The temptation is always to believe that the next exception is justified.
Sometimes it is.
But liberty survives because societies remain cautious about granting exceptions in the first place.
The hillside does not have to collapse. We can still respect the roots planted eight centuries ago. We can recommit ourselves to generality, impartiality, due process, and equal application of the law. We can insist that one standard applies to all citizens, all faiths, all ideologies, and all political movements.
The old tree still stands.
The question is not whether it can survive another century.
The question is whether we are wise enough to understand why it survived the last eight.
Monty
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