Note 98 — Chapter V · THE STATE.
Reading edition
The prohibition of the use of extrajudicial force by the King against his subjects is one of the main provisions of Magna Carta (sec. 39): “No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled or anyways destroyed, nor will we go against him, nor will we send against him, save by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.” It is submitted that, subject only to the jus necessitatis, this is still the law of England, notwithstanding the doctrine of military absolutism laid down by Lord Halsbury, in the name of the Privy Council, in the case of Ex parte Marais, (1902) A. C, 109.