Habeas corpus is the right to demand lawful detention. It can be suspended in times of war or civil unrest. In the US, it can only be suspended by Congress for public safety reasons. It has been suspended during the Civil War, World War II, and for enemy combatants. Other countries have also suspended it for various reasons.
Suspension of habeas corpus is the revocation of the legal right to demand that a person’s detention be shown to be lawful by those holding the prisoner. This is usually a temporary measure, although in some cases it has been the prelude to more radical or long-lasting measures. In British law and descendant legal systems, such as that of the United States, a writ of habeas corpus is a legal order requiring that a prisoner be brought before a court so that a judge can rule on the lawfulness of his or her detention and order the release of the prisoner if he has been held unlawfully. Many civil law jurisdictions have similar procedures. Historically, governments that usually recognize the right to habeas corpus petitions have sometimes suspended it, usually in response to an actual or perceived threat from war or civil unrest. The legal systems of many countries allow habeas corpus to be suspended under certain circumstances.
In the United States of America, both the right to habeas corpus and the government’s power to suspend it are enumerated in Article One of the Constitution, which describes the composition and procedures of Congress and enumerates its powers. Article one, section nine states that Congress is permitted to suspend habeas corpus only when deemed necessary for public safety “in cases of rebellion or invasion.” Originally, this was taken to refer only to federal government prisoners, with the legal rights of those detained by state governments defined by each state’s constitution, but federal courts were given the power to review prisoners’ petitions held by state governments by a statute passed in 1867.
The first federal suspension of habeas corpus in America occurred during the Civil War in 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln ordered it suspended in parts of the United States, such as Maryland, which were thought might secede and join the Confederate States of America . This was ruled illegal by a federal court, as the Constitution gave the power to suspend habeas corpus to the legislature and not the executive, but it was still enforced. Habeas corpus was also suspended in the Confederacy during the war.
Habeas corpus has been suspended on several subsequent occasions. President Ulysses Grant ordered the suspension of habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina in 1870 as part of a federal campaign to suppress the Ku Klux Klan. During World War II, it was suspended in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and restored in 1944. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 suspended the right of habeas corpus for aliens held as enemy combatants by the United States, but parts of this legislation was subsequently repealed by the Supreme Court.
Suspension of habeas corpus has occurred in many other countries. In Canada, it was suspended to justify the internment of several thousand foreign nationals, mostly Germans and Ukrainians, during and after World War I and of Japanese Canadians during World War II. It was also briefly suspended in 1970 in response to terrorist acts committed by radical separatists in Quebec. It was suspended by order of President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1971, followed the next year by a declaration of martial law.
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