Churchill on Habeas Corpus

By Scott Horton

[T]he great privilege of habeas corpus, and of trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the State . . .  —The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers—is, in the highest degree, odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments . . . Extraordinary powers assumed by the Executive with the consent of Parliament in emergencies should be yielded up, when and as, the emergency declines . . .  This is really the test of civilisation.

—Winston S. Churchill, Cable to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison from Cairo (Churchill responds to critics over the decision to release accused Nazi collaborator Oswald Moseley), Nov. 21, 1943. Reproduced in The Second World War: Closing the Ring (1952) .