What’s Magna Carta — legal icon, myth, or misconception? When was Magna Carta —1215, say the historians, the lawyers (were they to agree) might say 1297. In this talk Dr Nigel Jamieson, Faculty of Law at the University of Otago discusses what Magna Carta might mean for us today — being in Latin most modernists would shrug it off; some cynics say it means nothing much, since it’s only called the Great Charter because in 1215 they couldn’t text it down to twenty words; others say it’s not for us today because we’re far more up with the political play; and then there are those today who extol it to divert our attention away from the fact that they’re fiddling the books behind our backs. 21 July 2015