What is habeas corpus?
- The right to a free lawyer
- The right to challenge unlawful detention by the state
- The right to own property
- The right to vote
Answer: The right to challenge unlawful detention by the state
Habeas corpus is the right to challenge unlawful detention by the state. It comes from English common law, one of the sources of Canadian law.
Learn more: Where Canadian law comes from
- Sources of Canadian law: laws passed by Parliament and the provincial legislatures, English common law, the civil code of France, and the unwritten constitution inherited from Great Britain.
- These sources secure an 800-year-old tradition of ordered liberty that dates back to Magna Carta (1215), also called the Great Charter of Freedoms.
- Habeas corpus, the right to challenge unlawful detention by the state, comes from English common law.
- The Quebec Act of 1774, passed by the British Parliament, restored French civil law in Quebec while keeping British criminal law.