Colonial courts could suspend habeas corpus without cause shown

Evidence

The legal community in Calcutta was particularly attuned to the broad implications of Justice Norman’s decision to defend the government’s power to suspend the right to habeas corpus. Lawyers in Calcutta collected transcripts of the court proceedings and arranged quick print runs with local newspapers. One such pamphlet stated that the case raised the question of ‘whether the Government- General of India in Council has the power, at any moment, without cause shown to arrest any Englishman or native subject in this country’. The concern of the legal community in Calcutta was quickly echoed elsewhere in India. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 122

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to modern debates about emergency powers, preventive detention, and judicial deference to executive authority under colonial-era statutes like the Bengal State Prisoners Regulation. — connects to: Habeas corpus petitions let prisoners challenge the legality of their imprisonment — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 250