The suffragette movement and civil liberties

The extent to which the English common law protected civil liberties in the past is widely debated. Were the judges protectors of core freedoms such as liberty and the right to protest or were they allies of the executive in their hostility towards them? Since at least Dicey, the common law has had a vision of itself as the former, but what does practice reveal? This article explores the many ways in which the advocates of female suffrage in the 10 years or so before the First World War interacted with executive and judicial authority in their effort to use what they saw as their ancient freedoms to protect their campaigning for the vote for women. The suffragette campaign generated a series of conflicts between the judicial and executive branches of the state while also testing the depth of the common law’s commitment to civil liberties.