What is writ of habeas corpus?
The writ (document) of habeas corpus is a legal code stating that a person cannot be arrested and held without first being taken before a judge. The judge will then determine whether such detention complies with the laws of the land. (Habeas corpus is the Latin phrase for “you have to have the body.”) The concept dates to the Magna Carta (a document guaranteeing some civil and political rights), which was created in England in 1215. Article 39 of the Magna Carta states that “No freemen [citizen] shall be taken or imprisoned, or exiled or in any way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act re-enforced the writ and added that the king or queen cannot detain a person unless Parliament (the law-making body of Great Britain) or the courts agree. In colonial America, the writ was important as a safeguard against…
