One Latin phrase has blocked unexplained imprisonment in English law for 800 years

Habeas corpus, Latin for 'you shall have the body,' lets a detained person demand that a court be shown why they're being held, forcing the state to justify the detention or release them. Rooted in English common law and echoed in Magna Carta, it remains a core legal safeguard against arbitrary imprisonment in many countries today.

— English and Anglo-American common law tradition, Habeas corpus — codified in England by the Habeas Corpus Act 1679

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