The Great Writ

FAY v. NOIA, 372 U.S. 391 (1963) 372 U.S. 391 . The basic principle of the Great Writ of habeas corpus is that, in a civilized society, government must always be accountable to the judiciary for a man's imprisonment: If the imprisonment cannot be shown to conform with the fundamental requirements of law, the individual is entitled to his immediate release. We do well to bear in mind the extraordinary prestige of the Great Writ, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, 5 in [372 U.S. 391, 400] Anglo-American jurisprudence: "the most celebrated writ in the English law." 3 Blackstone Commentaries 129. It is "a writ antecedent to statute, and throwing its root deep into the genius of our common law. . . . It is perhaps the most important writ known to the constitutional law of England, affording as it does a swift and imperative remedy in all cases of illegal restraint or confinement. It is of immemorial antiquity, an instance of its use occurring in the thirty-third year of Edward I." Secretary of State for Home Affairs v. O'Brien, 1923. A. C. 603, 609 (H. L.). Received into our own law in the colonial period, 6 given explicit recognition in the Federal Constitution, Art. I, 9, cl. 2, 7 incorporated in the first grant of federal court jurisdiction, Act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, 14, 1 Stat. 81-82, habeas corpus was early confirmed by Chief Justice John Marshall to be a "great constitutional privilege." Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout, 4 Cranch 75, 95. Only two Terms ago this Court had occasion to reaffirm the high place of the writ in our jurisprudence: "We repeat what has been so truly said of the federal writ: `there is no higher duty than to maintain it unimpaired,' Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U.S. 19, 26 (1939), and unsuspended, save only in the cases specified in our Constitution. " Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708, 713 .