Glossary
Procedural due process
The constitutional requirement that government use fair procedures, such as notice and a hearing, before depriving a person of life, liberty or property.
Also called: due process, fair procedure
Procedural due process is the guarantee, in the Fifth Amendment for the federal government and the Fourteenth for the states, that government may not take away a person's life, liberty or property without fair procedures. At a minimum that usually means notice of what the government intends to do and a meaningful opportunity to be heard by a neutral decision-maker.
What process is "due" depends on the stakes. In criminal cases it includes the rights to counsel, to confront witnesses and to a jury. In civil and administrative settings the Supreme Court uses a balancing test from Mathews v. Eldridge (1976), weighing the private interest, the risk of error and the government's burden. Related protections include habeas corpus and the rule that a law too vague to give fair warning cannot be enforced.
Due process arguments appear across the political spectrum: in campus disciplinary hearings, civil asset forfeiture, immigration removals, red flag gun orders and government employment. It is distinct from substantive due process, which concerns which rights government may limit at all rather than how it must act.
Last reviewed November 8, 2026