Every court of criminal justice must have the power of correcting the greatest and most dangerous of all abuses of the forms of law,—that of the protracted imprisonment of the accused, untried, perhaps not intended ever to be tried, nay, it may be, not informed of the nature of the charge against him, or the name of the accuser.

Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, Respecting Crimes (1819) vol. 2, ch. 4 'Of Liberation on the Act 1701, c. 6'