habeas corpus

habeas corpus, a writ requiring the production in court of a detained person. An English act of 1679 confirmed the procedure's status as a defence against imprisonment without trial. The absence of comparable Irish legislation was first raised as a grievance in 1692 (see sole right), and became a central patriot demand until remedied by Sir Samuel Bradstreet's Liberty of the Subject Act (1782).

In response to the challenges of the Defender and United Irish movements, Young Ireland, and the Fenians, the right of habeas corpus was suspended by act of parliament for most of the period 1796–1806, during 1848–9, and again in 1866–9. The Protection of Life and Property Act or Westmeath Act (1871), permitting the detention without trial of suspected Ribbonmen in West‐meath and adjoining counties, was seen as a novel use of the power of suspension outside periods of political emergency (although there was in fact one precedent, in response to agrarian disturbances, during six months of 1822). The Protection of Persons and Property Act of March 1881 temporarily reintroduced detention without trial; but the necessity of maintaining those so detained in relatively comfortable conditions led government to rely thereafter on the summary jurisdiction of the 1887 Crimes Act (see coercion acts). Internment was however to reappear in the Anglo‐Irish War, and in the security policies of both Northern Ireland and independent Ireland.