Why is Habeas Corpus so important?

Answer 1

In Latin Habeas Corpus means, "bring the body." Through this law a prisoner may be released from unlawful detention (being held with insufficient evidence or cause). This law safeguards individual freedoms against arbitrary state action.

There are several writs of habeas corpus. The writ most often referred to in U.S. law in abbreviation as "habeas corpus" is the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. This is Law Latin that means "that you have the body to submit to (the court)" ('possession of the body' is a concept in search-and-seizure law, the idea being that an arrest is literally a 'seizure of a person's body'). The writ is also known as the "Great Writ".

It is a common-law order issued by the court to an individual detaining another (usually the Sheriff, or "Shire Reeve") under color of law, ordering them to bring their detainee before the court, for the purpose of conducting an inquiry into the reasons for the detainee's imprisonment.

Ostensibly, these reasons may be found by the court to be baseless. In such a case, the court presumably also has the authority to order the detainee's release.

The court's authority to issue writs of habeas corpus is derived at English Common Law from the Habeas Corpus Act (31 Car. 2, 1679). The Act is one of the "four great charters of English liberty".

One of them, termed the writ of habeas corpus ad faciendum et recipiendum, which is Law Latin for "that you have the body to do and to receive", was a writ sent from a superior court to an inferior court, removing the case, and, incidentally, the "body of the defendant", from the inferior court to the superior court.

Today, at U.S. law, this is known as the writ of certiorari. This writ is most prominently used by the Supreme Court of the United States where it chooses to hear a case it deems of sufficient importance to the law to merit its consideration (there are actually very few appeals as of right to the Court, pursuant to the U.S. Constitution).

Sometimes a case on which the Court decides to issue certiorari is referred to as having been "appealed to the Supreme Court", but this phrase is a misnomer. The Court actually issues comparatively few writs of certiorari from among the petitions it receives. Where the Court declines to issue the writ, the decision of the lower court, be it the United States Court of Appeal, or the Supreme Court of a U.S. State, stands.

The writs of habeas corpus remain good law in the United States to this day.

Answer 2

Habeas corpus literally translates to 'produce the body'. It stems from fundamental independent judicial traditions which emerged within the common law system of England which began to evolve in the 11th century. Elements of habeas corpus were enshrined in legislation in the Magna Carta of 1215.

It is important as it is a common law expression of essential individual legal rights - namely that no governing authority nor any of its executive branches can by right detain an individual without presenting them before the judicial branch. The principles of habeas corpus have since been adopted, to greater or lesser degrees, by non-common law nations.

An individual has the right not to be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention and procedures of habeas corpus operate to prevent this from occurring. Habeas corpus requires that an individual be: as promptly as is practicable, presented before an impartial third party judicial authority; to be informed of the charges laid against them; to have the need and duration of their detention be determined upon legal grounds; to be given fair opportunity to defend charges against them; and to have any charges against them be adjudicated with reasonable expedition.

In the context of current issues, habeas corpus rights have been significantly undermined through the indefinite detention of suspected terrorist subjects at Guantanamo Bay; through the suspension of New Zealand's statutory Bill of Rights to allow for detention under anti-terror laws; and through the amendment of legislation in Australia to allow for ongoing detention without charge for individual suspected of associating with known or suspected terrorists - the determination of which is subject to exercise of executive, rather than judicial, power.

Answer 3

it wasnt nessisarelly important as it was just really bad. habeas corpus literally means prduce a body. in other words if a bank was robbed and they need to find the crook they just went out in the the street found someone with the general description and bam, that poor dude is serving time. or that's how my history teacher told me.

Answer 4

Habeas Corpus is one of a variety of writs that may be issued to bring a party before a court or judge, having as its function the release of the party from unlawful restraint.

Answer 5

true