Habeas corpus in the context of "Fundamental rights in India"

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⭐ Core Definition: Habeas corpus

Habeas corpus (/ˈhbiəs ˈkɔːrpəs/ ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether their detention is lawful. The right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus has long been celebrated as a fundamental safeguard of individual liberty.

Habeas corpus is generally enforced via writ, and accordingly referred to as a writ of habeas corpus. The writ of habeas corpus is one of what are called the "extraordinary", "common law", or "prerogative writs", which were historically issued by the English courts in the name of the monarch to control inferior courts and public authorities within the kingdom. The writ was a legal mechanism that allowed a court to exercise jurisdiction and guarantee the rights of all the Crown's subjects against arbitrary arrest and detention.At common law the burden was usually on the official to prove that a detention was authorized.

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👉 Habeas corpus in the context of Fundamental rights in India

The Fundamental Rights in India enshrined in part III (Article 12–35) of the Constitution of India guarantee civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India. These rights are known as "fundamental" as they are the least essential for all-round development i.e., material, intellectual, moral and spiritual and protected by fundamental law of the land i.e. constitution. If the rights provided by Constitution especially the fundamental rights are violated, the Supreme Court and the High Courts can issue writs under Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution, respectively, directing the State Machinery for enforcement of the fundamental rights.

These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus. Violations of these rights can also result in punishments as prescribed in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms where every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality and life. These rights apply universally to all citizens of India, irrespective of their race, place of birth, religion, caste or gender. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England's Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Death row

Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ("being on death row"), even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment unparoled. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.

Opponents of capital punishment claim that a prisoner's isolation and uncertainty over their fate constitute a form of psychological abuse and that especially long-time death row inmates are prone to develop a mental disorder, if they do not already have such a condition. This is referred to as the death row phenomenon. Estimates reveal that five to ten percent of all inmates on death row have a mental health condition. Some inmates may attempt suicide. There have been some calls for a ban on the imposition of the death penalty for inmates with mental illness and also case law such as Atkins v. Virginia to further this. Executions still take place for those with clear intellectual disabilities due to poor legal representation and high standards of proof.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Personal security

Security of the person is a basic entitlement guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It is also a human right explicitly defined and guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, the Constitution of Canada, the Constitution of South Africa and other laws around the world.

In general, the right to the security of one's person is associated with liberty and includes the right, if one is imprisoned unlawfully, to a remedy such as habeas corpus. Security of person can also be seen as an expansion of rights based on prohibitions of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. Rights to security of person can guard against less lethal conduct, and can be used in regard to prisoners' rights.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Negative and positive rights

Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either inaction (negative rights) or action (positive rights). These obligations may be of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative rights may also be applied to liberty rights.

Negative rights may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, life, private property, freedom from violent crime, protection against being defrauded, freedom of religion, habeas corpus, a fair trial, and the right not to be enslaved by another.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Weimar Constitution

The Constitution of the German Reich (German: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (Weimarer Verfassung), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era. The constitution created a federal semi-presidential republic with a parliament whose lower house, the Reichstag, was elected by universal suffrage using proportional representation. The appointed upper house, the Reichsrat, represented the interests of the federal states. The president of Germany had supreme command over the military, extensive emergency powers, and appointed and removed the chancellor, who was responsible to the Reichstag. The constitution included a significant number of civic rights such as freedom of speech and habeas corpus. It guaranteed freedom of religion and did not permit the establishment of a state church.

The constitution contained a number of weaknesses which, under the difficult conditions of the interwar period, failed to prevent Adolf Hitler from setting up a Nazi dictatorship using the constitution as a cover of legitimacy. Although it was de facto set aside by the Enabling Act of 1933, the constitution remained legal-technically in effect throughout the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945 and also during the Allied occupation of Germany from 1945 to 1949. It was then replaced by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany until 1990, then reunited Germany) and the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

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Habeas corpus in the context of Guantanamo Bay detention camp

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO (/ˈɡɪtm/ GIT-moh), GITMO (/ˈɡɪtm/ GIT-moh), or simply Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 by President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects and "illegal enemy combatants" during the "war on terror" following the September 11 attacks. As of January 2025, at least 780 people from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation, of whom 756 had been released or transferred to other detention facilities, 9 died in custody, and 15 remain.

Following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. led a multinational military operation against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to dismantle al-Qaeda and capture its leader, Osama bin Laden. During the invasion, in November 2001, Bush issued a military order allowing the indefinite detention of foreign nationals without charge and preventing them from legally challenging their detention. The U.S. Department of Justice claimed that habeas corpus—a legal recourse against unlawful detention—did not apply to Guantanamo because it was outside U.S. territory. In January 2002, a temporary detention facility dubbed "Camp X-Ray" was created to house suspected Al-Qaeda members and Taliban fighters. By May 2003, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had grown into a larger and permanent facility that housed over 680 prisoners, most without formal charges. The Bush administration maintained it was not obliged to grant prisoners protections under the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Conventions, since the former did not extend to foreign soil and the latter did not apply to "unlawful enemy combatants". Humanitarian and legal advocacy groups claimed these policies were unconstitutional and violated international human rights law; several landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions found that detainees had rights to due process and habeas corpus but were still subject to military tribunals.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Authoritarian socialism

Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an economic and political system supporting some form of socialist economics while rejecting political pluralism. As a term, it represents a set of economic-political systems describing themselves as "socialist" and rejecting the liberal-democratic concepts of multi-party politics, freedom of assembly, habeas corpus, and freedom of expression, either due to fear of counter-revolution or as a means to socialist ends. Journalists and scholars have characterised several countries, most notably the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and their allies, as authoritarian socialist states.

Contrasted to democratic socialist, social democratic, anti-statist, and libertarian forms of socialism, authoritarian socialism encompasses some forms of African, Arab and Latin American socialism. Although considered an authoritarian or illiberal form of state socialism, often referred to and conflated as socialism by critics and argued as a form of state capitalism by left-wing critics, those states were ideologically Marxist–Leninist and declared themselves to be workers' and peasants' or people's democracies. Academics, political commentators and other scholars tend to distinguish between authoritarian socialist and democratic socialist states, with the first represented in the Soviet Bloc and the latter represented by Western Bloc countries which have been democratically governed by socialist parties - such as Britain, France, Sweden and Western social-democracies in general, among others. Those who support authoritative socialist regimes are pejoratively known as tankies.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Implied bill of rights

The implied bill of rights (French: déclaration des droits implicite) is a theory in Canadian jurisprudence which proposed that as a consequence of the British North America Act, certain important civil liberties could not be abrogated by the government. The significance of an implied bill of rights has decreased since the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an entrenched written bill of rights, but remains important for understanding the evolution of Canadian human rights law and the Constitution of Canada. In the 1938 decision of Reference Re Alberta Statutes, a concurring opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada first proposed an implied bill of rights.

The rights and freedoms that are protected under the Charter, including the rights to freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and the presumption of innocence, have their roots in a set of Canadian laws and legal precedents related to "implied rights". Although implemented in judiciary law and part of required reading in Canadian law schools, the theory was never codified either in legislation or in the constitution by the majority in the Supreme Court of Canada. Prior to the advent of the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960 and its successor the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the laws of Canada did not provide much in the way of civil rights and it was typically of limited concern to the courts.

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Habeas corpus in the context of Richard Newton (caricaturist)

Richard Newton (19 May 1777 – 8 December 1798) was an English caricaturist, miniaturist and book illustrator.

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