Habeas Corpus Act 1640
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The Habeas Corpus Act 1640 is an Act of the Parliament of England (16 Cha I. c. 10) with the long title "An Act for the Regulating the Privie Councell and for taking away the Court commonly called the Star Chamber."[1] The Act was passed by the Long Parliament shortly after the impeachment and execution of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford in 1641 and before the English Civil War. It abolished the Star Chamber.[2] It also declared that anyone imprisoned by order of the king, privy council, or any councilor could apply for a writ of habeas corpus, required that all returns to the writ "certify the true cause" of imprisonment,[3] and clarified that the Court of Common Pleas also had jurisdiction to issue the writ in such cases (prior to which it was argued that only the King's Bench could issue the writ).[4]
[edit] References
- ^ 'Charles I, 1640: An Act for [the Regulating the Privie Councell and for taking away the Court commonly called the Star Chamber.', Statutes of the Realm: volume 5: 1628-80 (1819), pp. 110-12. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47221. Date accessed: 06 March 2007.
- ^ 'Book 1, Ch. 11: Charles I', A New History of London: Including Westminster and Southwark (1773), pp. 154-74. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=46728. Date accessed: 06 March 2007.
- ^ Paul Halliday, Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 224–26.
- ^ R. J. Sharpe, The Law of Habeas Corpus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 18.
