The Akaroa Mail, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1939. THE BENEFITS OF THE HABEAS CORPUS WRIT

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXIV, Issue 6579, 25 October 1939, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1939. THE BENEFITS OF THE HABEAS CORPUS WRIT

WHEN we read ol' the sudden ar-

i rests in Germany and Russia and other parts of Europe of people who have no redress, and often are never heard of again by tneir relatives it is time for is British people to be thankful that such things cannot happen to us. '1 he right of an open trial has been enjoyed by the English from the Middle Ages and that right is contained in the Habeas Corpus Writ which was formulaled with the Magna Chan,a signed so unwillingly by King John. Many people do not reali/. 3 what the Habeas Corpus Act lias done for the English people, i'lackstone, the legal wiiter, calls it "that great and efficacious writ'' and states that it is one of the principle supports of our liberties. The French system of issuing "lettres de cachets" to favourites of sovereign which enabled them tc imprison enemies in the Bastille prison without any interference was one of the main causes of the French revolution in 1789. The interference with the liberty of the ordinary citizen and i lie refusal to give him a right to plead his own case are the two cnief causes of misery and revolt. In Germany, Russia and Italy these rights are denied to the ordinary man and a day of reckoning must come. The right of a prisoner to demand those imprisoning him to show on what grounds he has been arrested has been provided by the Habeas Corpus Act in England and its importance in the development of our constitution cannot be overlooked. Many people do not know what the Habeas Corpus Writ really is and the following description is of interest to all British subjects. 'The full title of the writ is

Habeas Corpus ad Subjiciendum; but in spite of its title the correct answer from the custodian of a prisoner to whom it is addressed is not to bring the body for judgment but. to explain on what grounds the person is held a prisoner and —if they are judged inadequate by the Court —to set. him at liberty forthwith. In other ords, it is the machinery for putting into force that freedom from arbiiary arrest which has been enjoyed by Englishmen since the dim, shadow)'' beginnings of English law, and was embodied in the famous section 29 of Magna. Carta, I which laid down that "no free man shall be taken or imprisoned unless by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land." It is often erroneously imagined that Habeas Corpus only dates from the Habeas Corpus Act of Charles ll's reign. In fact the Habeas Corpys writ was in common use throughout the Middle Ages, and. the Act merely regulated the machinery for its use. One provision of that Act was that a single Judge, of the King's Bench could issue the writ during Vacation, on which point there had previously been some doubt. The writ is a Common Law remedy, though its use is now m certain respects regulated by statute. Perhaps the most famous occasion on v. hich the writ was ever employed was in the eighteenth century, when Lord Mansfield decided that it was no answer to the detention j of a slave in England to plead his j sla\ ~,ry, and concluded a famous

judgment with the ringing phrase, "And therefore the block must be discharged.''

"The importance of Habeas Corpus in the English Constitution illustrates at once its difference from foreign Constitutions and its strength over them. Many foieign Constitutions —even the oldest and the most free—depend on a written statement and definiiion of the rights to be enjoyed under them. In this country— perhaps because the Englishman iis practical and shrewd—little reliance has been p.laeed on any- written definition of his rights. It has rather been the custom of this nation to provide for its citizens a remedy for enforcing their particular rights- and of these remedies, the most impressive, is certainly Habeas Corpus."