What does clause 39 and 40 of the Magna Carta mean?
Matthew Harrington
Updated on February 27, 2026
Clauses 39 and 40, for example, forbid the sale of justice and insist upon due legal process. From this sprang not only the principle of habeas corpus (that the accused are not to be held indefinitely without trial), but the idea of the right to trial by jury (by the accused's 'peers').