Habeas corpus and the rule of law

Speaker: Professor Michael Lobban (LSE)
Chair: Professor Philip Schofield (UCL Laws)
Admission: Free
Accreditation: This event is accredited with 1 CPD hour with the SRA (BSB pending)

Current Legal Problems 2014-15

If the rule of law was one of the main pillars of the English constitution in the eyes of Victorian jurists, its crowning glory was the writ of habeas corpus, which ensured that no one could be deprived of their liberty save by law. This paper will explore the various ways in which this was used at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth century.

It will seek to shed some light on how Dicey’s contemporaries understood and applied the ‘rule of law’ and will also suggest that a historical analysis uses of the writ may offer some answers to questions which have arisen in more recent cases.

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About the speaker

Michael Lobban is Professor of Legal History, having joined the Department of Law in 2013. After finishing his doctorate at Cambridge University, he held a Junior Research Fellowship at St. John’s College, Oxford. From 1991 to 1996, he taught in the department of law at the University of Durham, before moving first to Brunel University (1997-2000) and then to Queen Mary, University of London.

About Current Legal Problems

The Current Legal Problems annual lecture series was established over sixty years ago. The lectures are public, delivered on a weekly basis and chaired by members of the judiciary.

The Current Legal Problems (CLP) annual volume is published on behalf of UCL Laws by Oxford University Press, and features scholarly articles that offer a critical analysis of important current legal issues. It covers all areas of legal scholarship and features a wide range of methodological approaches to law. With its emphasis on contemporary developments, CLP is a major point of reference for legal scholarship.

Find out more about CLP on the Oxford University Press website