“To no man will we sell, deny or delay right or justice”

So says clause 40 of Magna Carta, granted by King John in 1215 at the behest of the barons of England. In last week’s decision of the High Court in the Saudi arms case, the judges took 171 paragraphs to say pretty much the same thing. Their clarity and forcefulness, if not their brevity, approaches the vigour of the draftsman of the great charter of the 13th century, on which judicial independence has been based ever since.