Statement of fact and argument of a Free Subject of the English Realm.

I speak as a free subject of this realm, claiming the rights that the original law and contract itself declared to be mine.

The common law of England has never admitted the Roman maxim of desuetude to do so would be a subversion of the Laws of England. Statutes and declared rights do not wither, lapse, or lose force through the mere passage of time, non-use, or contrary practice. Continuity is the very essence of the common law: what was law remains law until it is lawfully altered according to the forms that the law itself provides. This rejection of desuetude is the foundation upon which the ancient rights of the subject stand unbroken.

Because desuetude has no place, the rights declared in the Act of 1689 remain of the same force and effect as the day they were enacted. 

That Act is titled “An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown.” It declares the rights therein set forth to be “the true, ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom, and so shall be esteemed, allowed, adjudged, deemed and taken to be.” It commands that “all and every the particulars aforesaid shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed as they are expressed in the said declaration, and all officers and ministers whatsoever shall serve their Majesties and their successors according to the same in all time to come.” And it enacts that the whole “shall stand, remain and be the law of this realm for ever.”

The Act of Settlement of 1701, titled “An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject,” confirms and ratifies the same. It states that “the Laws of England are the Birthright of the People thereof and all the Kings and Queens who shall ascend the Throne of this Realm ought to administer the Government of the same according to the said Laws and all their Officers and Ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same.” The birthright of the people cannot be extinguished by the passage of years or by later instruction that pretends the opposite.

Section III of the Bill of Rights provides that “no charter or grant or pardon granted before the three and twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-nine shall be any ways impeached or invalidated by this Act, but that the same shall be and remain of the same force and effect in law.” Magna Carta is such a charter. It declares that no free man shall be arrested, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, exiled, or otherwise destroyed, nor proceeded against, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land, and that to no one will right or justice be sold, refused, or delayed. This is the observance of the law of the land that remains law. It forms part of the birthright of the people and stands protected forever.

Section II of the Bill of Rights enacts that “no dispensation by non obstante of or to any statute or any part thereof shall be allowed, but that the same shall be held void and of no effect.” In a legal order that rejects desuetude, this clause confirms that the declared rights cannot be sidestepped by executive pretence or by any claim of obsolescence. 

What is void remains void.

The Coronation Oath binds every King and Queen to govern the people of this kingdom according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on and the laws and customs of the same. The rights declared in 1689, the laws confirmed in 1701, and the ancient charters protected by Section III are among those statutes, laws, and customs. The Oath therefore requires their observance. The Crown must either assent or refuse; it cannot abstain. Yet the original texts forbid any assent that would set aside the rights that are to be firmly and strictly holden in all time to come and for ever.

To pretend that Parliament could enact a law that went against these undoubted rights is to deny the original contract between the Crown and the people, as recognised in the constitutional settlement itself. Any monarch who assented to such a law would thereby perjure the Coronation Oath and forfeit the Crown, for the Oath requires government according to the statutes, laws, and customs that include these perpetual rights. Any judge who ruled to the contrary would perjure their own oath to do justice according to the law, and would fail to advise the King properly. Such counsellors and judges would become the very essence of those condemned in the preamble to the Bill of Rights: the “various* evil counsellors, judges and ministers” by whose assistance the late King James the Second did endeavour to subvert the laws and liberties of this kingdom.
*The original word was “divers” which is archaic English and today means “various” or “several.”

Taken together, these original texts produce a single, unbroken conclusion. The rights of the subject are not temporary privileges that may be redefined, suspended, or allowed to fall into disuse. They are ancient, indubitable, and perpetual. They are the birthright of the people. They bind the Crown, the officers, and the ministers in all time to come. Because the common law refuses the maxim of desuetude, no amount of later teaching, professional instruction, or state practice can lawfully erase them. Any claim that these rights have somehow become alterable or optional is a departure from the original settlement itself.

I therefore claim and insist upon these rights as my birthright. They stand for ever. They are to be firmly and strictly holden and observed by all who govern or serve under the Crown. Any law, dispensation, or proceeding that stands outside these protections is void and of no effect by the original force of the texts themselves. The subjects of the realm stand upon the law as it was declared, strictly holden, and secured forever.

By using the words and phrasing forever, all time to come and various sections forbidding change – the original contract expressed that desuetude shall not have any effect on these laws or rights.  In fact, a Scottish court that acknowledged A.V. Dicey’s thoughts on this.

The case is MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396 (also reported as 1953 SLT 255). In the course of the case the Lord Advocate conceded that the Parliament of the United Kingdom “could not” repeal or alter certain “fundamental and essential” conditions of the Treaty/Acts of Union 1707.

The concession made in MacCormick v Lord Advocate aligns directly with the older English authorities. In Calvin’s Case (1608), Sir Edward Coke held that the laws and rights of England are the birthright of the English people and cannot be overturned by implication, practice, or administrative innovation. If the Scottish courts recognise that certain “fundamental and essential” provisions of the Treaty and Acts of Union 1707 lie beyond the competence of the British Parliament to repeal or alter, then the same constitutional limitation must apply to England. The English constitutional settlement—rooted in the common law, declared in 1689, and confirmed in 1701—contains rights expressly stated to stand “for ever” and “in all time to come.” The logic is identical: what cannot be repealed for Scotland cannot be repealed for England. The fundamental conditions of the English constitution bind Crown and Parliament alike, and remain beyond lawful alteration.