Due Process

In criminal law, the constitutional guarantee that a defendant will receive a fair and impartial trial. In civil law, the legal rights of someone who confronts an adverse action threatening liberty or property.

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Answers.com

An established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual.

Duhaime Legal Dictionary

Fundamental procedural legal safeguards of which every citizen has an absolute right when a state or court purports to take a decision that could affect any right of that citizen (such as, re USA, Fifth Amendment).

The most basic right protected under the due process doctrine is the right to be given notice and an opportunity to be heard (audi alteram partem), and the right to an impartial judge (nemo judex in parte sua).

The term is now also in use in other countries, again to refer to basic fundamental legal rights such as the right to be heard.

Encyclopedia Britannica

A course of legal proceedings according to rules and principles that have been established in a system of jurisprudence for the enforcement and protection of private rights. In each case, due process contemplates an exercise of the powers of government as the law permits and sanctions, under recognized safeguards for the protection of individual rights.

Principally associated with one of the fundamental guarantees of the United States Constitution, due process derives from early English common law and constitutional history. The first concrete expression of the due process idea embraced by Anglo-American law appeared in the 39th article of Magna Carta (1215) in the royal promise that “No freeman shall be taken or (and) imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed . . . except by the legal judgment of his peers or (and) by the law of the land.” In subsequent English statutes, the references to “the legal judgment of his peers” and “laws of the land” are treated as substantially synonymous with due process of law. Drafters of the U.S. federal Constitution adopted the due process phraseology in the Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1791, which provides that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Because this amendment was held inapplicable to state actions that might violate an individual’s constitutional rights, it was not until the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 that the several states became subject to a federally enforceable due process restraint on their legislative and procedural activities.

FindLaw

1: a course of formal proceedings (as judicial proceedings) carried out regularly, fairly, and in accordance with established rules and principles

2: a requirement that laws and regulations must be related to a legitimate government interest (as crime prevention) and may not contain provisions that result in the unfair or arbitrary treatment of an individual.

Law.com Dictionary

A fundamental principle of fairness in all legal matters, both civil and criminal, especially in the courts. All legal procedures set by statute and court practice, including notice of rights, must be followed for each individual so that no prejudicial or unequal treatment will result. While somewhat indefinite, the term can be gauged by its aim to safeguard both private and public rights against unfairness. The universal guarantee of due process is in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides "No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," and is applied to all states by the 14th Amendment. From this basic principle flows many legal decisions determining both procedural and substantive rights.

Lect Law Library

The idea that laws and legal proceedings must be fair. The Constitution guarantees that the government cannot take away a person's basic rights to 'life, liberty or property, without due process of law.' Courts have issued numerous rulings about what this means in particular cases.

Merriam Webster

1 : a course of formal proceedings (as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles —called also procedural due process 2 : a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual —called also substantive due process

Wikipedia

Due process alternatively due process of law or the process that is due, is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law. Due process holds the government subservient to the law of the land, protecting individual persons from the state.

Due process has also been frequently interpreted as placing limitations on laws and legal proceedings, in order for judges instead of legislators to define and guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty. This interpretation has often proven controversial, and is analogous to the concepts of natural justice, and procedural justice used in various other jurisdictions.