thewhitrbbit wrote:
I won't vote for Obama because I refuse to vote for a president who suspends Habeus Corpus, a right that has been enjoyed since the Magna Carta.
I have to correct you there.
Habeus corpus is nowhere found in
Magna Carta. It only guarantees that a freeman shall not be, "taken or imprisoned...but by lawful judgement of his Peers, or by the Law of the land."
Magna Carta in no way restricted the Royal Authority to arrest in pursuit of the law, and to detain indefinitely pending trial, for these were always within "the Law of the land." Up until the 17th century,
habeus corpus was primarily a means whereby the King could demand account from a subordinate official as to the reasons for a prisoner's detention. It could not be enforced against the King, himself.
Until Parliament intervened.
Where
Habeus Corpus became enforcable
against the Crown, rather than by it was the
Habeus Corpus Act of 1679. An earlier attempt had been made in 1640, but Charles I was disinclined to subordinate himself to Parliament. But the 1679 Act was made with the full approval of Charles II, and it has been a bulwark of the Law of England and Wales (and all jurisdictions that have fallen heir to her) ever since.
I did not know that, I had always thought it came from Magna Carta.