Winston Churchill Quotes

Our country is wounded and bleeding now if we don't know whether or not habeas corpus exists.

The Habeas Corpus Act is the most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny.

Human rights must be protected by the rule of law, and there can never be occasions where human rights can be neglected or ignored or the rule of law set aside.

There is nothing more foreign to a civilised and democratic system than preventive detention.

It's one of the nice things about this nation that when the Constitution is violated, if it affects you, you can bring a suit.

Trial by jury, the best of all safeguards for the person, the property, and the fame of every individual.

If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law --- if that is not what we have always cried out against in Fascist states -- then what is it?

No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised, (killed) outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will We proceed against or prosecute him except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.

More rogues than honest men find shelter under habeas corpus.

The national emergency no longer justifies abrogation of individual rights of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury on definite charges.

Well, summary executions would be very effective. But we have impediments—they're called the Constitution and due process. And we have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

If the prosecution of crime is to be conducted with so little regard for that protection which centuries of English law have given to the individual, we are indeed at the dawn of a new era; and much that we have deemed vital to our liberties, is a delusion.

If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States of America as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.

No Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned, or be deprived of his Free-hold or liberty… but by the lawful judgment of his peers, and by the Laws of this province.

I'm a lawyer, I practiced for many years, and so I believe in the Fifth Amendment.

There is only one rule of law in our country, which provides rights and security for every citizen.

Nobody should be sent indefinitely into detention; everybody should have their day in court.

This country does not punish its political enemies. What this country ensures is that no one is above the law.

There are some lines in the sand you just do not cross. Undermining basic civil liberties by locking people up for long periods without charge is one of them.

To threaten the institution is to threaten fair administration of justice and protection of liberty.

Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?

The Constitution has a good share of deliberately open-ended guarantees, like rights to due process of law, equal protection of the law, and freedom from unreasonable searches.

Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties - provided we're only talking about criminals.

We are not in the regime of Aurangzeb. We are in the regime of rule of law. When rule of law is concerned, it applies to government, it applies to Supreme Court, it applies to everybody.

It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.