Documents
Habeas Corpus Act 1679
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 is an English law that strengthened the ancient writ of habeas corpus, requiring that a detained person be brought before a court so a judge can rule on whether the detention is lawful. It remains a foundational protection against arbitrary imprisonment in common law systems.
Facts
Key ProvisionEnacted by the English Parliament in 1679, it strengthened the ancient common-law writ of habeas corpus by closing procedural loopholes the crown and its officers had used to hold prisoners without trial: it required a jailer, on receipt of the writ, to produce the prisoner before a court within a set number of days and state the cause of detention, imposed escalating fines on officials who delayed or refused, and barred the practice of transporting a prisoner overseas specifically to place them beyond the writ's reach. It remains, in amended form, part of English law and a foundational guarantee against arbitrary detention in the wider Anglo-American legal tradition. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Both are part of the same seventeenth-century sequence of English statutes constraining arbitrary crown power that later shaped Anglo-American constitutionalism.
Influenced
Influenced By
Magna Carta, Documents Clause 39's promise against arbitrary imprisonment is the medieval root historians trace forward to the 1679 Act's formal writ of habeas corpus.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.