The Jurors

 

An artwork by Hew Locke for Runnymede, Surrey, UK to mark the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta.

 

 

Twelve intricately worked bronze chairs stand together on this ancient meadow. Each chair incorporates symbols and imagery representing concepts of law and key moments in the struggle for freedom, rule of law and equal rights. The Jurors is not a memorial, but rather an artwork that aims to examine the changing and ongoing significance and influences of Magna Carta. 

 

The jury system, a central feature of the British justice system and many others around the world, has its origins in Magna Carta. The chairs seem to be awaiting a gathering, discussion or debate of some kind: an open invitation from the artist for the audience to sit, to reflect and, to discuss together the implications of the histories and issues depicted.

A shredder destroys a document. A few words can still be seen, in German, but most have been stricken out, perhaps redacted. Amongst the pile of shredded paper the words Top Secret in many different languages can be seen, along with fragments of the image of a skull and keys.

These freedoms, although not expressed so clearly within Magna Carta, are often associated with Magna Carta and acknowledged as one of the strengths of the myths that surround it. Even if Magna Carta is not a document about freedom of speech, it has inspired people to campaign for freedom of speech.

The Golden Rule states you should treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. Versions of this concept are found in all major world religions and philosophies and the phrase is expressed on The Jurors in 14 different languages. The phrase ‘The Golden Rule’ is written in fourteen different languages from around the world, in interlocking circles.

Chinese script that describes the Confucian principles of Ren (humaneness), Li (ritual) and Yi (justice) at the core of Confucian ideas of how a society should be organised, developed in the Han Dynasty (from 206 BCE).

Lillie Lenton was a suffragette. She carried out a series of arson attacks on buildings such as the Tea House at Kew Gardens with the aim, as she put it, “to create an absolutely impossible condition of affairs in the country, to prove it was impossible to govern without the consent of the governed.”

A portable charkha, or hand spinning wheel for cotton, designed by Mahatma Gandhi and used in the 1930s as a political symbol of resistance to British imported goods and British rule.

Hew Locke has combined references to both this women in this chair, who both encountered legal challenges to their work, clustered with flowers.

In April 1920, members of the National League of the Blind from across the UK marched to London behind a banner declaring, ‘Justice not Charity’, to raise awareness of a private members bill going through parliament. The main image representing this story is taken from a photograph of that event.

Magna Carta, and Clause 39 in particular, is the starting point for The Jurors. Clause 39 is one of three clauses that is still on the UK statute books and is often referred to as the basis for a jury trial system and Hew shows in this panel a section of the clause taken directly from the document, in Latin. The clause, translated in modern English, states:

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska, spilling at least 11 million gallons of crude oil. Subsequent environmental disasters and evidence of the cause and effect of pollution has led to the establishment of new principles such as the Ceres Principles, a moral code of environmental conduct.

The design shows a modern day classroom with children learning about The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNDRC). Selected clauses are written on the board and on the covers of some of the textbooks. This is a classroom where children of different religions and genders can work side-by-side. The UNDRC was adopted in 1989. UNICEF states:

 

Cornelia Sorabji was the first woman lawyer in India and worked with many Hindu women in purdah, who were not permitted to meet men in public or defend themselves in court. Hew depicts Sorabji stood in front of a courthouse and surrounded by decoration from a purdah screen, used to separate men from woman indoors.Sorabji was also the first woman, and first Indian, to study law at Oxford University.

An Amerindian headdress, forest and a river clustered with gold nuggets. Indigenous land claims have been addressed, with varying degrees of success on a national and international level, since colonization. Such claims may be based upon the principles of international law, treaties, common law, or domestic constitutions or legislation.

A combination of images depicting the Emancipation of the Serfs (1861) by Tsar Alexander II. Serfdom was the feudal system that tied Russian peasants irrevocably to their landlords. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Moscow was to have commemorated the event, but it was never finished due to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The loudhailer (known as a bullhorn in America) has been called, “one of the most familiar emblems from the early days of the gay rights movement”, is shown surrounded by, and spouting with, flowers. In the background is a striped, rainbow flag. Harvey Milk used this loudhailer to rally crowds to his street meetings.