The Research On Due Process Of Law In American Constitutional Law

Due process of law is one of the core principles of US constitution, it has become a fundamental principle of American constitutional system. Due process, which originated in the British and initially only had procedural implications, the US Constitution developed this tradition while inherited it, the Fourteenth Amendment developed the principles of natural justice of United Kingdom, which not only emphasizes the need to involve deprivation of procedural legislative entity the right to life, liberty and property, but also the legal requirements established by Congress and state must meet the standards of fairness and justice. An unreasonable law, although becomes effective and be carried out through legal procedures, it is unconstitutional. This unique style of development is progress on legal and make up for the shortcomings of the program itself.Substantive due process experienced a long process of evolution, its meaning developed with the changing of era and social development. Its scope of protection from the initial property rights, freedom of contract, to the field of personal rights, especially the protection of privacy in the late last century. The creatively develop of substantive due process in U.S. Constitution, largely due to its unique test method:rational basis test, strict scrutiny test and Intermediate level test. These different levels of test standards correspond to different types of content rights, and thus form the typed protection of civil rights. This typed protection made substantive due process protection of the rights of American citizens safety net and prompt it become the cornerstone of the United States Constitution. By examining the evolution of substantive due process, this paper reveals the unique values and types of test patterns underlying values inherent of American judges in different periods and the profound background of social changes, which undoubtedly has important implications for the rule of law in China. Chinese legal culture traditional has a tendency to "re-light program entities", therefore, properly learn the spirit of the principles of due process can make a certain positive significance. Text of this article includes five chapters.The first chapter is an overview of the due process, discusses the ideological origins of due process, the origins of Due Process of Law and English Common Law, the meaning and value of due process. As an extremely important concept and system of Western constitutionalism and the rule of law tradition traditional, due process closely related to the British "natural principles of justice." Natural justice derived from natural law, the concept of rationality, justice, rule of law and the rights of other natural law contains shaped Western rule of law. Origin, operation and development of due process, all guided by natural law, which makes Western society to retain the traditional core values and to give itself a new vitality in pursuit of the ideal process of law. American Inherited the spirit 1 of aw of western law, made the due process of law into constitution and developed the theory of substantive due process, which evaluate the contents, and the legitimacy of purpose of the law and become important constitutional interpretation tool of the United States Supreme Court to protect the rights of citizens, then realized the formal transcend of natural Law. Because of the inherited relationship between the United States and British common law, we are bound to trace the origin of the British common law system, and further explore their generated genes. "Magna Carta", "King Under Law" laid the foundation for the formation of the concept of due process of law. A series program system and principles of British such as writ, the program prior to the rights, the jury system, the principle of stare decisis have contributed to the generation of due process and profoundly influenced the development of American law. Through the elaboration of meaning and value of due process, clarified the evolution of the term Due process and why it developed a substantive meaning, and then laid the theoretical foundation for further study.The second chapter demonstrates the breakthrough of due process of law:on the program "legitimate" to essentially "reasonable". This chapter discusses the practice of states in the United States, introduction of "bill of rights", the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment about due process provisions and incorporation on the "bill of rights" by the latter, which laid a solid foundation of theory and practice for set up of the substantive due process in the United States. The development of due process is also accompanied by the development of the scope of protection of their rights, the Supreme Court gradually expanded scope of "life, liberty and property" in judicial practice with the changing times and social development, which made the scope of rights guaranteed by due process gradually expanded and effectively response to the continuous development of the various claims. Finally, the evolution from procedural due process to substantive due process does not mean that the former is cease to exist, the relationship between the two is not either-or but parallel development in practice.The third chapter focuses on the development process of substantive due process in the United States. It focuses on the rise and fall of substantive due process in the economic field, the development in non-economic areas and the protection of the constitutional rights which not enumerated. It takes typical cases of different areas for example to reveal the court’s adapt to changes the development of society and thus continue to give new meaning to the due process clause in order to respond to the needs of social development and ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens against government legislation violations, it has a positive meaning for the protection of individual basic rights and makes rigid constitutional text gained new vitality to avoid social dislocation. On the one hand, substantive due process closely links to life, liberty and property of citizens and makes its scope not boundless, on the other hand, it also leaves space for the development of the terms of the content. It not only protects the fundamental rights of individuals in constitution, but also protects the rights of citizens’ privacy and dignity of those involved are not listed, which reflect the judicial functions and values of US Constitution and the but also reflects the unique charm of the development of it in the United States and factors of social and economic transformation behind it.The fourth chapter describes the test standards of procedural due process and substantive due process. It describes how the United States creatively develop various inspection standards and the evolution and application of different standards in judicial practice combined with the specific cases, then notes that how these test standards affects the definition of the scope of protection of due process. The United States creatively develop various inspection standards of substantive due process, which becomes an important safeguard of the successful development of substantive due process. Three test standards of substantive due process also corresponds to the reality of economic and social development needs of the United States, the court makes the crucial and significant distinction determines of the property and economic freedom, civil rights and personal freedom in application of substantive due process, which decides the different judicial practice of substantive due process in the development process in the United States. In the meantime, these different test standards formed a relatively.clear level of review standards in judicial practice of the Supreme Court, which applies different test standards to protect civil rights at different levels according to the nature and the field of fundamental rights, thus forms a type mode of civil rights protection. This chapter has a connecting role.The fifth chapter discusses the typed protection of substantive due process in safeguarding the American civil rights. This chapter focuses on the origins and evolution of this type of protection mode and believes that this type of protection mode contains the basic rights of the "priority status" as well as the separation of powers under the constraints of American jurisprudence on judicial function. This chapter points out flaws in the model by surveying it, analyze its relationship with the classification principles of equal protection, and points out that this typed protection mode has been obtain a great certainty, but also has variability to a certain extent in the judicial practice of substantive due process in safeguarding the rights of American citizens. This typed protection is more realistic response to the needs of specific social and economic development of the product, not a purely theoretical deduction from Supreme Court. It has greatly promoted the development of the American civil rights and adapt to the rhythm of the world’s human rights development and requirements, in the sense the typed protection of substantive due process has major significance to the US Constitution, this typed mode also made profound impact on thinking and mode selection for the protection of civil rights of the rest of the world.Finally, the article discusses the important role and inspiration of theory of due process to the construction of rule of law of our country. To achieve foreign things serve China, we can do something from several aspects, such as establishing the concept of due process of law in the constitution, establishing the legal authority and civil religion of law; building our civil rights protection mode from drawing the type of protection mode of substantive due process of the United States. This requires perfect interpretation of the Constitution, sound implementation of the Constitution and supervision system; emphasis on the independent value of proceedings; guide the current judicial reform with due process to; pay attention to the concept of due process of implantation and localization issues and so on. But any legal idea is not vacuum created, nor can easily portable, looking at Chinese legal culture, it lacks of "Program" nurtured soil, so it is bound to be a long and difficult process.