Magna Carta, did she die in vain?

As a newly qualified solicitor let loose on a housing advice duty desk at a south-coast county court, I acquired a client opposing a mortgage possession claim. A possession order looked inevitable, but he had a decent chance of getting it suspended. I laid out my considered advice and what I proposed to say in the hearing. To my surprise, he began ranting about how statutes were not ‘real law’ and demanded that I argue his case on ‘common law and Magna Carta’. Taken aback, my unprofessional reply was ‘1215 or 1225 Magna Carta, and should I argue the clauses about fish weirs and levying scutage?’ After minutes of increasing exasperation on my side – and decibels on his – we agreed he should not instruct me for the hearing. Lord knows what the overworked and notoriously testy district judge made of it.

This, I now know, was my first encounter with pseudolaw, defined here as ‘a collection of spurious legally incorrect ideas that superficially sound like law, and purport to be real law’. Over recent decades, there has been an increase in this phenomenon, in which individuals misrepresenting the law have appeared in courts and social media. This work examines the concept and its effects on the administration of justice, which have been significant in some jurisdictions. A Canadian court took the time to hand down a judgment (Meads v Meads (2012)) dissecting the main strands of pseudolaw to assist practitioners. Trying to get a handle on pseudolaw is difficult. This work shows there are many different versions and it does not seem to be confined to any end of the political spectrum, but the book makes a valiant effort.

Pseudolaw seems to be becoming less of a fringe issue. Garbled versions of Magna Carta made several appearances during Covid, as defences to lockdown requirements. And any lawyer who has commented on law on social media has had some replies citing the Bill of Rights out of context. It feels like it is part of the role of the profession to correct the record, but it can’t do that without some understanding of what it is up against.

James E Hurford is a solicitor at the Government Legal Department, London