Doctrines
Due Process
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Origin Traced to Magna Carta (1215); entered explicit United States constitutional text through the Fifth Amendment (1791) and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
Due process is the legal principle that government must respect all legal rights owed to a person and follow fair, established procedures before depriving anyone of life, liberty or property. It traces to Magna Carta 1215, whose guarantee against arbitrary punishment except by the lawful judgment of a person peers or by the law of the land, is its earliest documented ancestor in English law, and it entered explicit constitutional text in the United States through the Fifth Amendment (1791) and, applied to state governments, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868). Civil law systems recognize analogous fair-procedure guarantees under related principles such as the rule of law and the principle of legality.
Facts
Origin PeriodTraced to Magna Carta (1215); entered explicit United States constitutional text through the Fifth Amendment (1791) and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868). 1 Core PrincipleThe state may not deprive a person of life, liberty or property without fair legal procedures and adequate notice. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Lochner is the namesake case for the substantive due process line of reasoning the Due Process doctrine page should read as a discredited episode within, not as the doctrine's current shape.
Miranda enforces due process's privilege against self-incrimination by requiring specific procedural warnings before custodial interrogation.
Both doctrines trace to the same Magna Carta clause and developed along related but distinct lines: due process constrains the state's treatment of a specific person, while the rule of law constrains the state's exercise of power generally.
Established
Why this is disputed. Clauses 39 and 40 of the 1215 charter are the most frequently cited medieval ancestor of due process, but the connection runs through Coke's seventeenth century reinterpretation rather than a direct 1215 intention; scholars debate how much continuity genuinely exists versus how much was read backward onto the text.
In Legal System
Civil Law, Legal Systems Civil law systems recognize analogous fair-procedure guarantees under related principles such as the rule of law and the principle of legality, rather than due process as such.
Named here for its documented English and American constitutional lineage. Civil law systems recognize closely analogous fair-procedure guarantees under related principles, including the rule of law and the principle of legality, rather than under the same name.
Sources
1. Black's Law Dictionary
Bryan A. Garner, editor; founded by Henry Campbell Black, Thomson Reuters
Due Process (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead section, definitionQuote, Lead section, definition
Due process of law is application by the state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to a case so all legal rights that are owed to a person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it.
Major Legal Systems in the World Today
Rene David and John E.C. Brierley, Stevens and Sons, 1985In Legal System: Common Law
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law
Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann, editors, Oxford University Press, 2006Established: Magna Carta
The Oyez Project
Associated With: Lochner v. New York
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