It declares no principles and defines no rights, but is for practical purposes worth a hundred articles guaranteeing constitutional liberty.[1]
In the manner characteristic of English legislation the act is limited to the particular grievances immediately in view and is limited to imprisonment for criminal or supposed criminal matters, leaving untouched imprisonment on civil process or by private persons. It recites that great delays have been used by sheriffs and gaolers in making returns of writs of habeas corpus directed to them; and for the prevention thereof, and the more speedy relief of all persons imprisoned for criminal or supposed criminal matters, it enacts in substance as follows: (1) When a writ of habeas corpus is directed to a sheriff or other person in charge of a prisoner, he must within 3, 10 or 20 days, according to the distance of the place of commitment, bring the body of his prisoner to the court, with the true cause of his detainer or imprisonment—unless the commitment was for treason or felony plainly expressed in the warrant of commitment. (2) If any person be committed for any crime—unless for treason or felony plainly expressed in the warrant—it shall be lawful for such person or persons (other than persons convicted or in execution by legal process) in time of vacation, to appeal to the lord chancellor as a judge, who shall issue a habeas corpus returnable immediately, and on the return thereof shall discharge the prisoner on giving security for his appearance before the proper court—unless the party so committed is detained upon a legal process or under a justice’s warrant for a non-bailable offence. Persons neglecting for two terms to pray for a habeas corpus shall have none in vacation. (3) Persons set at large on habeas corpus shall not be recommitted for the same offence unless by the legal order and process of the court having cognizance of the case. (4) A person committed to prison for treason or felony shall, if he requires it, in the first week of the next term or the first day of the next session of oyer and terminer, be indicted in that term or session or else admitted to bail, unless it appears on affidavit that the witnesses for the crown are not ready; and if he is not indicted and tried in the second term or session after commitment, or if after trial he is acquitted, he shall be discharged from imprisonment. (5) No inhabitant of England (except persons contracting, or, after conviction for felony, electing to be transported) shall be sent prisoner to Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, &c., or any place beyond the seas. Stringent penalties are provided for offences against the act. A judge delaying habeas corpus forfeits £500 to the party aggrieved. Illegal imprisonment beyond seas renders the offender liable in an action by the injured party to treble costs and damages to the extent of not less than £500, besides subjecting him to the penalties of praemunire and to other disabilities. “The great rank of those who were likely to offend against this part of the statute was,” says Hallam, “the cause of this unusual severity.” Indeed as early as 1591 the judges had complained of the difficulty of enforcing the writ in the case of imprisonment at the instance of magnates of the realm. The effect of the act was to impose upon the judges under severe sanction the duty of protecting personal liberty in the case of criminal charges and of securing speedy trial upon such charges when legally framed; and the improvement of their tenure of office at the revolution, coupled with the veto put by the Bill of Rights on excessive bail, gave the judicature the independence and authority necessary to enable them to keep the executive within the law and to restrain administrative development of the scope or penalties of the criminal law; and this power of the judiciary to control the executive, coupled with the limitations on the right to set up “act of state” as an excuse for infringing individual liberty is the special characteristic of English constitutional law.
It is to be observed that neither at common law nor under the act of 1679 was the writ the appropriate remedy in the case of a person convicted either on indictment or summarily. It properly applied to persons detained before or without trial or sentence; and for convicted persons the proper remedy was by writs of error or certiorari to which a writ of habeas corpus might be used as ancillary.
As regards persons imprisoned for debt or on civil process the writ was available at common law to test the legality of the detention: but the practice in these cases is unaffected by the act of 1679, and is of no present interest, since imprisonment on civil process is almost abolished. As regards persons in private custody, e.g. persons not sui juris detained by those not entitled to their guardianship or lunatics, or persons kidnapped, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum seems not to have been the ordinary common law remedy. The appropriate writ for such cases was that known as de homine replegiando. The use of this writ in most if not all criminal cases was forbidden in 1553; but it was used in the 17th century in a case of kidnapping (Designy’s case, 1682), and against Lord Grey for abducting his wife’s sister (1682), and in the earl of Banbury’s case to recover his wife (1704). The latest recorded instance of its use is Trebilcock’s case (1736), in which a ward sought to free himself from the custody of his guardian.
Since that date the habeas corpus ad subjiciendum has been used in cases of illegal detention in private custody. In 1758 questions arose as to its application to persons in naval or military custody, including pressed men, which led to the introduction of a bill in parliament and to the consultation by the House of Lords of the judges (see Wilmot’s Opinions, p. 77). In the same year the writ was used to release the wife of Earl Ferrers from his custody and maltreatment, and was unsuccessfully applied for by John Wilkes to get back his wife, who was separated from him by mutual agreement. But perhaps the most interesting instances of that period are the case of the negro Somerset (1771), who was released from a claim to hold him as a slave in England: and that of the Hottentot Venus (1810), where an alien woman on exhibition in England was brought before the court by Zachary Macaulay in order to ascertain whether she was detained against her will.
The experience of the 18th century disclosed defects in the procedure for obtaining liberty in cases not covered by the act of 1679. But it was not till 1816 that further legislation was passed for more effectually securing the liberty of the subject. The act of 1816 (56 Geo. III. c. 100), does not touch cases covered by the act of 1679. It enacts (1) that a writ of habeas corpus shall be issued in vacation time in favour of a person restrained of his liberty otherwise than for some criminal or supposed criminal matter (except persons imprisoned for debt or by civil process); (2) that though the return to the writ be good and sufficient in law, the judge shall examine into the truth of the facts set forth in such return, and if they appear doubtful the prisoner shall be bailed; (3) that the writ shall run to any port, harbour, road, creek or bay on the coast of England, although not within the body of any county. The last clause was intended to meet doubts on the applicability of habeas corpus in cases of illegal detention on board ship, which had been raised owing to a case of detention on a foreign ship in an English port.
It will appear from the foregoing statement that the issue and enforcement of the writ rests on the common law as strengthened by the acts of 1627, 1640, 1679 and 1816, and subject also to the regulations as to procedure contained in the Crown Office Rules, 1906. The effect of the statutes is to keep the courts always open for the issue of the writ. It is available to put an end to all forms of illegal detention in public or private custody. In the case of the Canadian prisoners (1839) it was used to obtain the release of persons sentenced in Canada for participating in the rebellion of 1837, who were being conveyed throughout England in custody on their way to imprisonment in another part of the empire, and it is matter of frequent experience for the courts to review the legality of commitments under the Extradition Acts and the Fugitive Offenders Act 1881, of fugitives from the justice of a foreign state or parts of the king’s dominions outside the British Islands.
In times of public danger it has occasionally been thought necessary to “suspend” the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 by special and temporary legislation. This was done in 1794 (by an act
- ↑ Dicey, Law of the Constitution (6th ed.), p. 195.
