I don't know why you got voted down because you are correct. The English common law right of free speech exists to this day and has (largely) not been supplant

I don't know why you got voted down because you are correct. The English common law right of free speech exists to this day and has (largely) not been supplanted. It exists in many countries that use English common law as a base. Enshrining it in a constitution was new, perhaps, but then the idea of a constitution was new. The UK still doesn't have a constitution.