England’s Dealing With Ireland

Your editorial “London-Dublin Unease” (Feb. 28) on the actions by the British government caught in clear detail what has been the age-old problem of England’s dealings with Ireland, the unequal application of law.

This most recent flouting of legal procedures by the British government in dealing with the Irish is only the latest in a sorry history of England’s unwillingness to grant all people within its jurisdiction a fair and unbiased hearing.

I think it is good to realize that such a great document of Western legal history as the Magna Carta was drawn up by nobles interested only in their own concerns and as quickly ignored by a monarch equally defensive on his own position.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government is the heir to the government of King John but not to the ideals of basic rights demanded by the Magna Carta. There will never be peace in Northern Ireland until all its citizens are treated equally under the law.

When England guarantees equal justice for all there, then Runnymede will include the people left out at its first convening, the commoners--in this case the long-suffering Catholics of Northern Ireland.

PETER O’REILLY

El Monte