9.5 False Imprisonment

Definition: the unlawful and total restraint of a person's liberty of movement without lawful justification — the offence (and the tort — LAW 311's twin) of unlawful confinement: detaining another without consent and without legal authority, however brief (the law protects the liberty, not the duration — even minutes suffice if the restraint is complete), however achieved (physical barriers, force, threats the victim cannot ignore, the abuse of official power). The elements: (i) the detention/restraint of the person; (ii) its totality (no reasonable means of escape known to the victim); (iii) the unlawfulness — no lawful authority (no warrant, no statutory power, no consent). The doctrinal notes: (i) the official's false imprisonment — the arrest without grounds, the detention beyond the 24-hour production rule (Article 20(3)), the detention beyond the court's authority — the custodial-safeguards violations made criminal; (ii) the shopkeeper's suspicion- detention problem (the suspected shoplifter held without reasonable grounds — the merchant's privilege debated); (iii) the constitutional architecture — the habeas corpus jurisdiction (the Supreme Court under Article 133, the High Courts under Article 144) as the remedy whose very existence defines the offence's gravity: liberty of the person is the Constitution's core; (iv) the Code's abduction-family provisions (9.6) and the special statutes' detention heads as the penal homes.