In
United States constitutional law,
substantive due process is a principle which allows courts to protect certain
rights deemed fundamental from government interference under the authority of the
due process clauses of the
Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the
Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law." That is, substantive due process demarcates the line between acts by persons that courts hold are subject to government regulation or legislation and those acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve this function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.