Habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.
William Montague Charles Gummow is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy. He was appointed to the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong on 8 April 2013 as a non-permanent judge from other common law jurisdictions.
The judiciary of Australia comprises judges who sit in federal courts and courts of the States and Territories of Australia. The High Court of Australia sits at the apex of the Australian court hierarchy as the ultimate court of appeal on matters of both federal and State law.
A habitual offender, repeat offender, or career criminal is a person convicted of a new crime who was previously convicted of a crime(s). Various state and jurisdictions may have laws targeting habitual offenders, and specifically providing for enhanced or exemplary punishments or other sanctions. They are designed to counter criminal recidivism by physical incapacitation via imprisonment.
Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non-punitive purposes.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is a statute of the Parliament of New Zealand setting out the rights and fundamental freedoms of anyone subject to New Zealand law as a Bill of rights. It is part of New Zealand's uncodified constitution.
Al-Kateb v Godwin, was a decision of the High Court of Australia, which ruled on 6 August 2004 that the indefinite detention of a stateless person was lawful. The case concerned Ahmed Al-Kateb, a Palestinian man born in Kuwait, who moved to Australia in 2000 and applied for a temporary protection visa. The Commonwealth Minister for Immigration's decision to refuse the application was upheld by the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Federal Court. In 2002, Al-Kateb declared that he wished to return to Kuwait or Gaza. However, since no country would accept Al-Kateb, he was declared stateless and detained under the policy of mandatory detention.
Diane McGrath Fingleton is a former magistrate in the Queensland Magistrates Court, most notable for being appointed Chief Magistrate and later being convicted of the offence of intimidation of a witness, before the conviction was quashed on appeal to the High Court of Australia.
At Her Majesty's pleasure is a legal term of art referring to the indeterminate or undetermined length of service of certain appointed officials or the indeterminate sentences of some prisoners. It is based on the concept that all legitimate authority for government comes from the Crown. Originating in the United Kingdom, it is now used throughout the Commonwealth realms. In realms where the monarch is represented by a governor-general, governor or administrator, the phrase may be modified to be at the Governor's pleasure, since the governor-general, governor, lieutenant governor or administrator is the Queen's personal representative in the country, state or province.
Indefinite imprisonment or indeterminate imprisonment is the imposition of a sentence by imprisonment with no definite period of time set during sentencing. It was imposed by certain nations in the past, before the drafting of the United Nations Convention against Torture (CAT). The length of an indefinite imprisonment was determined during imprisonment based on the inmate's conduct. The inmate could have been returned to society or be kept in prison for life. Such a sentence is unconstitutional today, particularly in the United States.
Chng Suan Tze v. Minister for Home Affairs is a seminal case in administrative law decided by the Court of Appeal of Singapore in 1988. The Court decided the appeal in the appellants' favour on a technical ground, but considered obiter dicta the reviewability of government power in preventive detention cases under the Internal Security Act ("ISA"). The case approved the application by the court of an objective test in the review of government discretion under the ISA, stating that all power has legal limits and the rule of law demands that the courts should be able to examine the exercise of discretionary power. This was a landmark shift from the position in the 1971 High Court decision Lee Mau Seng v. Minister of Home Affairs, which had been an authority for the application of a subjective test until it was overruled by Chng Suan Tze.
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled that the plenary power doctrine does not authorize the indefinite detention of immigrants under order of deportation whom no other country will accept. To justify detention of immigrants for a period longer than six months, the government was required to show removal in the foreseeable future or special circumstances.
Lieutenant Colonel Justice John Harris Byrne, was the Senior Judge Administrator of the Supreme Court of Queensland. Having been a judge of that court since 1989, he was one of the court’s most experienced judges. He was also Chair of the National Judicial College of Australia, a body which provides programs and professional development resources to judicial officers in Australia.
The remedies available in a Singapore constitutional claim are the prerogative orders – quashing, prohibiting and mandatory orders, and the order for review of detention – and the declaration. As the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore is the supreme law of Singapore, the High Court can hold any law enacted by Parliament, subsidiary legislation issued by a minister, or rules derived from the common law, as well as acts and decisions of public authorities, that are inconsistent with the Constitution to be void. Mandatory orders have the effect of directing authorities to take certain actions, prohibiting orders forbid them from acting, and quashing orders invalidate their acts or decisions. An order for review of detention is sought to direct a party responsible for detaining a person to produce the detainee before the High Court so that the legality of the detention can be established.
South Australia v Totani is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court concerning the extent to which the legislative power of an Australian State is limited by the separation of powers in the Commonwealth Constitution. The High Court held that the legislative power of a State does not extend to enacting a law which deprives a court of the State of one of its defining characteristics as a court or impairs one or more of those characteristics.
The voting rights of prisoners in New Zealand have been in a near constant state of flux since the first election in New Zealand in 1853. Prisoners have experienced varying degrees of enfranchisement. The present position in New Zealand is that anyone in prison at the time of an election is ineligible to vote, regardless of the length of sentence imposed.
This page is about the penalties juveniles are subject to if found guilty of trafficking Cannabis. Most juveniles suffer the same, or very similar, penalties as adults. However this varies between countries, cultures and according to where the nation's minimum age of criminal responsibility lies. Information and laws regarding minors are difficult to find as they are usually classified or protected. This is due to laws preventing crimes committed, under the minimum age of criminal responsibility, being kept on a criminal record.
