Substantive due process

In United States constitutional law, substantive due process is a principle allowing courts to protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are not specifically mentioned elsewhere in the US Constitution. Courts have identified the basis for such protection from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of 'life, liberty, or property, without due process of law'. Substantive due process demarcates the line between the acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and the acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.We think it entirely plain that the Act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control. As often heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged by legislation which has no reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the state. The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.I have not yet adequately expressed the more than anxiety that I feel at the ever increasing scope given to the Fourteenth Amendment in cutting down what I believe to be the constitutional rights of the States. As the decisions now stand, I see hardly any limit but the sky to the invalidating of those rights if they happen to strike a majority of this Court as for any reason undesirable. I cannot believe that the Amendment was intended to give us carte blanche to embody our economic or moral beliefs in its prohibitions. Yet I can think of no narrower reason that seems to me to justify the present and the earlier decisions to which I have referred. Of course the words due process of law, if taken in their literal meaning, have no application to this case; and while it is too late to deny that they have been given a much more extended and artificial signification, still we ought to remember the great caution shown by the Constitution in limiting the power of the States, and should be slow to construe the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment as committing to the Court, with no guide but the Court's own discretion, the validity of whatever laws the States may pass. In United States constitutional law, substantive due process is a principle allowing courts to protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are not specifically mentioned elsewhere in the US Constitution. Courts have identified the basis for such protection from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of 'life, liberty, or property, without due process of law'. Substantive due process demarcates the line between the acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and the acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent. Substantive due process is to be distinguished from procedural due process. The distinction arises from the words 'of law' in the phrase 'due process of law'. Procedural due process protects individuals from the coercive power of government by ensuring that adjudication processes, under valid laws, are fair and impartial. Such protections, for example, include sufficient and timely notice on why a party is required to appear before a court or other administrative body, the right to an impartial trier of fact and trier of law, and the right to give testimony and present relevant evidence at hearings. In contrast, substantive due process protects individuals against majoritarian policy enactments that exceed the limits of governmental authority: courts may find that a majority's enactment is not law and cannot be enforced as such, regardless of whether the processes of enactment and enforcement were actually fair. The term was first used explicitly in 1930s legal casebooks as a categorical distinction of selected due process cases, and by 1952, it had been mentioned twice in Supreme Court opinions. The term 'substantive due process' itself is commonly used in two ways: to identify a particular line of case law and to signify a particular political attitude toward judicial review under the two due process clauses. Much substantive due process litigation involves legal challenges about unenumerated rights that seek particular outcomes instead of merely contesting procedures and their effects. In successful cases, the Supreme Court recognizes a constitutionally based liberty and considers laws that seek to limit that liberty to be unenforceable or limited in scope. Critics of substantive due process decisions usually assert that there is no textual basis in the Constitution for such protection and that such liberties should be left under the purview of the more politically accountable branches of government. The courts have viewed the Due Process Clause and sometimes other clauses of the Constitution as embracing the fundamental rights that are 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty'. The rights have not been clearly identified and the Supreme Court's authority to enforce the unenumerated rights is unclear. Some of the rights have been said to be 'deeply rooted' in American history and tradition; that phrase was used for rights related to the institution of the family. The courts have largely abandoned the Lochner era approach (c. 1897–1937), when substantive due process was used to strike down minimum wage and labor laws to protect freedom of contract. Since then, the Supreme Court has decided that numerous other freedoms, even if they are not in the text of the Constitution, are protected by it. If they were not protected by the federal courts' doctrine of substantive due process, they could nevertheless be protected in other ways; for example, some rights are protected by other provisions of the state or federal constitutions or by legislatures. Today, the Supreme Court provides special protection for three types of rights under substantive due process in the Fourteenth Amendment – an approach which originated in United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938), footnote 4: The Supreme Court usually looks first to see whether the right is a fundamental right by examining whether it is deeply rooted in American history and traditions. If the right is not a fundamental right, the court applies a rational basis test: if the violation of the right can be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, the law is then held valid. If the court establishes that the right being violated is a fundamental right, it applies strict scrutiny and asks whether the law is necessary to achieve a compelling state interest and whether the law is narrowly tailored to address that interest. Early in American judicial history, various jurists attempted to form theories of natural rights and natural justice to limit the power of government, especially on property and the rights of persons. Opposing 'vested rights' were other jurists, who argued that the written constitution was the supreme law of the State and that judicial review could look only to that document, not to the 'unwritten law' of 'natural rights'. Opponents also argued that the 'police power' of government allowed legislatures to regulate the holding of property in the public interest, subject only to specific prohibitions of the written constitution.