Habeas Corpus: from England to Empire

The ‘Great Writ’ of habeas corpus has long had an iconic status as the ‘writ of liberty’ which ensured that no person could be detained in prison without being put to trial by a jury of his peers. According to the traditional version, popularised by Whiggish constitutional writers from the late seventeenth century onwards, the English constitution as embodied in the common law had, since time immemorial, striven to protect the fundamental rights of Englishmen and women, which included the right to personal liberty. The common law had supplied the writ of habeas corpus, which secured the provision of Magna Carta, that no freeman be imprisoned save by the judgment of a jury of his peers. In the course of the seventeenth century, the Whig version ran, kings with an absolutist bent sought to undermine ancient liberties, by claiming prerogative powers to imprison without trial, and by appointing supine judges who would not protect people's liberties. It took the triumph of Parliament to restore and perfect them. For William Blackstone, one of the key statutes which secured ‘the complete restitution of English liberty’ was the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, ‘that second magna carta’. As Blackstone put it: ‘Magna carta only, in general terms, declared, that no man shall be imprisoned contrary to law: the habeas corpus act points him out effectual means, as well to release himself, though committed even by the king in council, as to punish all those who shall thus unconstitutionally misuse him.’