Concept
Due process
Related concepts (20)
Parliamentary sovereignty
Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies. It also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law (in some cases, not even a constitution) or by precedent.
Subpoena duces tecum
A subpoena duces tecum (pronounced in English səˈpiːnə_ˌdjuːsiːz_ˈtiːkəm ), or subpoena for production of evidence, is a court summons ordering the recipient to appear before the court and produce documents or other tangible evidence for use at a hearing or trial. In some jurisdictions, it can also be issued by legislative bodies such as county boards of supervisors. The summons is known by various names in different jurisdictions. The term subpoena duces tecum is used in the United States, as well as some other common law jurisdictions such as South Africa and Canada.
Indictment
An indictment (ɪnˈdaɪtmənt ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offense, an offense that requires an indictment. Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury".
Magna Carta
Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called Magna Carta (also Magna Charta; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law. A primary motivation for this clause was to validate the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all citizens would have the guaranteed right to equal protection by law.
Contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the court. A similar attitude toward a legislative body is termed contempt of Parliament or contempt of Congress. The verb for "to commit contempt" is contemn (as in "to contemn a court order") and a person guilty of this is a contemnor or contemner.
Hearing (law)
In law, a hearing is a proceeding before a court or other decision-making body or officer, such as a government agency or a legislative committee. A hearing is generally distinguished from a trial in that it is usually shorter and often less formal. During the course of litigation, oral arguments are presented in support of motions at hearings. The purpose of these arguments may be to resolve the case without further trial, such as through a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, or to decide discrete issues of law, such as the admissibility of evidence, which will determine how the trial proceeds.
Habeas corpus
Habeas corpus (ˈheɪbiəs_ˈkɔrpəs; from Medieval Latin, that you have the body) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful. The writ of habeas corpus was described in the eighteenth century by William Blackstone as a "great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal confinement".
Procedural law
Procedural law, adjective law, in some jurisdictions referred to as remedial law, or rules of court, comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil, lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are designed to ensure a fair and consistent application of due process (in the U.S.) or fundamental justice (in other common law countries) to all cases that come before a court. Substantive law, which refers to the actual claim and defense whose validity is tested through the procedures of procedural law, is different from procedural law.
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that most sanctions of criminal punishment for consensual, adult non-procreative sexual activity (commonly referred to as sodomy laws) are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated.