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right to due process

right to due process

3 4.8
Fair treatment in court and under the law
  • noun
  • /raɪt tə du ˈprɑːsɛs/
  • Formal
translation icon : derecho al debido proceso
  • As Cato adjunct scholar and Pacific Legal Foundation senior staff attorney Timothy Sandefur noted in his excellent op-ed on the case in the National Law Journal, "The U.S. Constitution also guarantees every American's right to due process of law and to protection of private property."
  • constitutional right to due process
  • violates the right to due process
  • rights to due process and humane treatment

There's only two presidents US histories to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, the right to due process.

Examples

  • Private college students can waive their rights to due process in a contract with the institution, but public college or university students cannot.

    Academic text (2007)
  • I have a right to due process granted to me as a citizen of the US under the Constitution and American jurisprudence.

    Blog text (9)
  • These rights would generally be the right to life, the right to privacy, and the right to due process.

    Blog text (8)
  • The unions protect an individual's right to "due process" and "just cause," two rights that many think teachers should not be given.

    Blog text (13)
  • She has the right to face her accuser in a court of law and the right to due process.

    Blog text (7)
  • In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court to block USADA, Armstrong claimed that the agency violates athletes' rights to due process.

    Blog text (15)
  • I'm vouching for the man's rights, his constitutional rights to due process and the proper place to litigate that is in the courts.

  • Lopez and Crome joined a group of students suing the Columbus Board of Education, affirming that their right to due process was infringed.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Only a few rights—principally, of course, the right to life, the right to protection from torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and the right to due process—are unqualified.

    Academic text (2016)
  • Every citizen has a right to due process when accused of a crime.

Synonyms

due process
vsright to due process
  • Formal
99 4.0

Fair legal steps that follow rules and protect people from unfair loss of freedom or property

is a US constitutional guarantee of fair treatment in ordinary courts
fair hearing
vsright to due process
  • Formal
12 5.3

A chance to tell your side to a court or official before a decision

is a broader constitutional right guaranteeing fair treatment across judicial processes
due process of law
vsright to due process
  • Formal
7 5.5

A rule that the government must follow fair legal steps before taking someone's life, freedom, or property

is the US constitutional right ensuring fair treatment before normal courts

Surface Forms

Morphology

right + to + due + process

The construction 'right to X' is transparent, but the core term 'due process' requires a legal, idiomatic interpretation of 'due' (meaning proper/fair) and a specialized legal sense of 'process' (judicial procedures). The meaning is partially inferable — many languages have similar legal collocations (e.g. Spanish 'debido proceso') — yet it is a technical legal term that a B1 learner who only knows the basic word senses may not fully predict without exposure.

Etymology

The phrase right to due process comes from the simple idea that a process is a set of steps and something due is what someone properly deserves, so everyone has a right to those fair steps in court. That's why it now means 'the legal right to fair treatment through the normal court process'.