Habeas Corpus
THE Attorney-General's attitude in the case of Andrew Mwenya has also been disturbing. It has now reached what would normally be con- sidered a happy ending; the Governor of Northern Rhodesia has revoked the order which banished Mwenya to a 'jungle Siberia,' because of his Con- gress activities; so Mwenya's application for Habeas Corpus, which he made to the English courts and which the Attorney-General has been resisting, need be taken no further. The Attorney- General may reasonably oppose any such applica- tion, for reasons of state; but, as Mr. Justice Sellers said last week (when the case was up before the Court of Appeal), it would have been pleasant to have heard him express reluctance at having to argue that a man in a British protectorate has no right to the protection of Habeas Corpus in the English courts. And there is something unattractive about the Attorney-General's com- ment this week, on the news of the suspension of the banishment edict : that he had been deprived ot the opportunity, to which he had been looking forward, of arguing this case again. This sounds altogether too reminiscent of the surgeon who laments that some of his patients unaccountably get better, depriving him of the opportunity to do very interesting operations.
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