Administrative Due Process

The premise that all individuals in the United States (including noncitizens) are entitled to (owed) a certain degree of procedure before their life, liberty, or freedom is taken from them. In other words, before an individual can be deprived of life, liberty, or freedom, certain procedures must take place. The due process clause is found in the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Under administrative law, government agencies as well as regulatory agencies must follow certain administrative procedures when working with private parties. These administrative procedures are written guidelines that are intended to protect the private parties from the capricious or unjust use of governmental authority. In addition, these procedures help protect the individual rights of these private entities. These stipulations require that government agencies or commissions observe specified guidelines that are designed to be neutral and objective. It is felt that since the government has a greater amount of resources than these private parties, steps must be taken to protect these private parties from governmental abuses. Part of the protections and safeguards of administrative due process is that any decision adverse to a private party is subject to appeal.

Administrative due process as applied to the legal system indicates that individuals must exhaust all legal remedies in their respective state legal systems before they can use the federal court system. In other words, before individuals can take a case to a federal district court, they must first exercise all of the appropriate legal remedies available to them in their particular state legal system.