Court Opinion

ID: 9420573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:55:16.427583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:25.932663
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
concurring.
The more issues of law are inescapably entangled in political controversies, especially those that touch the passions of the day, the more the Court is under duty to dispose of a controversy within the narrowest confines *150that intellectual integrity permits. And so I sympathize with the endeavor of my brother Burton to decide these cases on a ground as limited as that which has commended itself to him. Unfortunately, I am unable to read the pleadings as he does. Therefore I must face up to larger issues. But in a case raising delicate constitutional questions it is particularly incumbent first to satisfy the threshold inquiry whether we have any business to decide the case at all. Is there, in short, a litigant before us who has a claim presented in a form and under conditions “appropriate for judicial determination”? Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 240.
I.
Limitation on “the judicial Power of the United States” is expressed by the requirement that a litigant must have “standing to sue” or, more comprehensively, that a federal court may entertain a controversy only if it is “justiciable.” Both characterizations mean that a court will not decide a question unless the nature of the action challenged, the kind of injury inflicted, and the relationship between the parties are such that judicial determination is consonant with what was, generally speaking, the business of the Colonial courts and the courts of Westminster when the Constitution was framed. The jurisdiction of the federal courts can be invoked only under circumstances which to the expert feel of lawyers constitute a “case or controversy.” The scope and consequences of the review with which the judiciary is entrusted over executive and legislative action require us to observe these bounds fastidiously. (See the course of decisions beginning with Hayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 409, through Parker v. Los Angeles County, 338 U. S. 327.) These generalities have had myriad applications. Each application, even to a situation not directly pertinent to what *151is before us, reflects considerations relevant to decision here. I shall confine my inquiry, however, by limiting it to suits seeking relief from governmental action.
(1) The simplest application of the concept of “standing” is to situations in which. there is no real controversy between the parties. Regard for the separation of powers, see Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346, and for the importance to correct decision of adequate presentation of issues by clashing interests, see Chicago & G. T. R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, restricts the courts of the United States to issues presented in an adversary manner. A petitioner does not have standing to sue unless he is “interested in and affected adversely by the decision” of which he seeks review. His “interest must be of a personal and not of an official nature.” Braxton County Court v. West Virginia, 208 U. S. 192, 197; see also Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447. The interest must not be wholly negligible, as that of a taxpayer of the Federal Government is considered to be, Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447; cf. Crampton v. Zabriskie, 101 U. S. 601. A litigant must show more than that “he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally.” Frothingham v. Mellon, supra, at 488.
Adverse personal interest, even of such an indirect sort as arises from competition, is ordinarily sufficient to meet constitutional standards of justiciability. The courts may therefore by statute be given jurisdiction over claims based on such interests. Federal Communications Comm’n v. Sanders Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470; cf. Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Oregon-Washington R. Co., 288 U. S. 14.
(2) To require a court to intervene in the absence of a statute, however, either on constitutional grounds or in the exercise of inherent equitable powers, something more than adverse personal interest is needed. This additional element is usually defined in terms which assume the an*152swer. It is said that the injury must be “a wrong which directly results in the violation of a legal right.” Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U. S. 464, 479. Or that the controversy “must be definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests.” Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, supra, 300 U. S. at 240-241. These terms have meaning only when contained by the facts to which they have been applied. In seeking to determine whether in the case before us the standards they reflect are met, therefore, we must go to the decisions. They show that the existence of “legal” injury has turned on the answer to one or more of these questions: (a) Will the action challenged at any time substantially affect the “legal” interests of any person? (b) Does the action challenged affect the petitioner with sufficient “directness”? (c) Is the action challenged sufficiently “final”? Since each of these questions itself contains a word of art, we must look to experience to find their meaning.
(a) Will the action challenged at any time substantially ajject the “legal” interests oj any person? A litigant ordinarily has standing to challenge governmental action of a sort that, if taken by a private person, would create a right of action cognizable by the courts. United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196.1 Or standing may be based on an interest created by the Constitution or a statute. E. g., Parker v. Fleming, 329 U. S. 531; Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433; cf. Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678. But if no comparable common-law right exists and no such constitutional or statutory interest has been created, relief is not available judicially. Thus, at least unless capricious discrimination is asserted, there is no protected interest in contracting with the Government. A litigant therefore has no stand*153ing to object that an official has misinterpreted his instructions in requiring a particular clause to be included in a contract. Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113. Similarly, a determination whether the Government is within its powers in distributing electric power may be of enormous financial consequence to a private power company, but it has no standing to raise the issue. Tennessee Power Co. v. T. V. A., 306 U. S. 118; cf. Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U. S. 464. The common law does not recognize an interest in freedom from honest competition; a court will give protection from competition by the Government, therefore, only when the Constitution or a statute creates such a right.
(b) Does the action challenged affect petitioner with sufficient “directness”? Frequently governmental action directly affects the legal interests of some person, and causes only a consequential detriment to another. Whether the person consequentially harmed can challenge the action is said to depend on the “directness” of the impact of the action on him. A shipper has no standing to attack a rate not applicable to him but merely affecting his previous competitive advantage over shippers subject to the rate. Hines Trustees v. United States, 263 U. S. 143, 148; Sprunt & Son v. United States, 281 U. S. 249, 255, 257. When those consequentially affected may resort to an administrative agency charged with their protection, courts are especially reluctant to give them “standing” to claim judicial review. See Atlanta v. Ickes, 308 U. S. 517; cf. Associated Industries v. Ickes, 134 F. 2d 694.2
*154But it is not always true that only the person immediately affected can challenge the action. The fact that an advantageous relationship is terminable at will does not prevent a litigant from asserting that improper interference with it gives him “standing” to assert a right of action. Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229. On this principle an alien employee was allowed to challenge a State law requiring his employer to discharge all but a specified proportion of alien employees, Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, and a private school to enjoin enforcement of a statute requiring parents to send their children to public schools, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. The likelihood that the interests of the petitioner will be adequately protected by the person directly affected is a relevant consideration, compare Columbia System v. United States, 316 U. S. 407, 423-424, with Schenley Corp. v. United States, 326 U. S. 432, 435, as is, probably, the nature of the relationship involved. See Davis & Farnum Mfg. Co. v. Los Angeles, 189 U. S. 207, 220; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, 38-39.3
(c) Is the action challenged sufficiently final? Although a litigant is the person most directly affected by the challenged action of the Government, he may not have “standing” to raise his objections in a court if the action has not, as it were, come to rest.4 Courts do not *155review issues, especially constitutional issues, until they have to. See Parker v. Los Angeles County, supra, and see Brandeis, J., concurring in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 341. In part, this practice reflects the tradition that courts, having final power, can exercise it most wisely by restricting themselves to situations in which decision is necessary. In part, it is founded on the practical wisdom of not coming prematurely or needlessly in conflict with the executive or legislature. See Rochester Tel. Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125, 130-131. Controversies, therefore, are often held nonjusticiable “[wjhere the action sought to be reviewed may have the effect of forbidding or compelling conduct on the part of the person seeking to review it, but only if some further action is taken by the Commission.” Rochester Tel. Corp. v. United States, supra, at 129; and see Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U. S. 103. There is no “standing” to challenge a preliminary administrative determination, although the determination itself causes some detriment to the litigant. United States v. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co., 273 U. S. 299; cf. Ex parte Williams, 277 U. S. 267. Nor does the reservation of authority to act to a petitioner’s detriment entitle him to challenge the reservation when it is conceded that the authority will be exercised only on a contingency which appears not to be imminent. Eccles v. Peoples Bank, 333 U. S. 426. Lack of finality also explains the decision in Standard Scale Co. v. Farrell, 249 U. S. 571. There the Court was faced by an advisory “specification” of characteristics desirable in ordinary measuring scales. The specification could be enforced only by independent local officers’ withholding their approval of the equipment. Justiciability was denied.5
*156“Finality” is not, however, a principle inflexibly applied. If the ultimate impact of the challenged action on the petitioner is sufficiently probable and not too distant, and if the procedure by which that ultimate action may be questioned is too onerous or hazardous, “standing” is given to challenge the action at a preliminary stage. Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U. S. 197; Santa Fe Pac. R. Co. v. Lane, 244 U. S. 492; see Waite v. Macy, 246 U. S. 606. It is well settled that equity will enjoin enforcement of criminal statutes found to be unconstitutional “when it is found to be essential to the protection of the property rights, as to which the jurisdiction of a court of equity has been invoked.” E. g., Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U. S. 605, 621.6 And if the determination challenged creates a status which enforces a course of conduct through penal sanctions, a litigant need not subject himself to the penalties to challenge the determination. La Crosse Tel. Corp. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 18; Shields v. Utah Idaho R. Co., 305 U. S. 177.
(3) Whether “justiciability” exists, therefore, has most often turned on evaluating both the appropriateness of the issues for decision by courts and the hardship of denying judicial relief. This explains the inference to be drawn from the cases that “standing” to challenge official action is more apt to exist when that action is not within the scope of official authority than when the objection to the administrative decision goes only to its correctness. See United States v. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co., 273 U. S. 299, 314-315; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Labor Board, 261 *157U. S. 72; Ex parte Williams, 277 U. S. 267, 271.7 The objection to judicial restraint of an unauthorized exercise of powers is not weighty.8
II.
The injury asserted in the cases at bar does not fall into any familiar category. Petitioner in No. 8, the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, is, according to its complaint, an unincorporated association engaged in relief work on behalf of Spanish Republican refugees. *158Since its inception it has distributed relief totaling $1,229,351; currently it is committed to regular monthly remittances of $5,400. Its revenues have been obtained from public contributions, garnered largely at meetings and social functions. The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, petitioner in No. 7, is a nonprofit membership corporation whose purpose is alleged to be to strengthen friendly relations between the United States and the Soviet Union by developing cultural relations “between the peoples of the two nations” and by disseminating in this country educational materials about Russia. It has obtained its funds through public appeals and through collections at meetings. Petitioner in No. 71 is the International Workers Order. Its complaint states that it is a fraternal benefit society, comprising over 1,800 lodges, with assets totaling approximately $5,000,000. Its members pay dues for the general expenses of the Order, and many of them make additional contributions for life, sickness and disability insurance. In addition to its insurance activities, the Order “attempts to encourage the preservation of the cultural heritages and artistic values developed ... by the peoples of the different countries of the world and brought with them to the United States.”
In November, 1947, each of these organizations was included in the list of groups designated by the Attorney General as within the provisions of Executive Order No. 9835, the President’s Loyalty Order. The list was disseminated to all departments and agencies of the Government. Six months later, each was with more particularity labeled “communist.” Each alleges substantial injury as a consequence. Publicity and meeting places have become difficult for the Refugee Committee and the Council to obtain. The federal tax exemptions of all three organizations have been revoked; licenses necessary to solicitation of funds have been denied the *159Refugee Committee; and the New York Superintendent of Insurance has begun proceedings, in which a representative of the Attorney General of the United States has appeared, for dissolution of the Order. Most important, each of the organizations asserts that it has lost supporters and members, especially from present or prospective federal employees. Claiming that the injury is irreparable, each asks for relief by way of a declaratory judgment and an injunction.
The novelty of the injuries described in these petitions does not alter the fact that they present the characteristics which have in the past led this Court to recognize justiciability. They are unlike claims which the courts have hitherto found incompatible with the judicial process. No lack of finality can be urged. Designation works an immediate substantial harm to the reputations of petitioners. The threat which it carries for those members who are, or propose to become, federal employees makes it not a finicky or tenuous claim to object to the interference with their opportunities to retain or secure such employees as members. The membership relation is as substantial as that protected in Truax v. Raich and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra. And it is at least doubtful that the members could or would adequately present the organizations’ objections to the designation provisions of the Order.
Only on the ground that the organizations assert no interest protected in analogous situations at common law, by statute, or by the Constitution, therefore, can plausible challenge to their “standing” here be made. But the reasons which made an exercise of judicial power inappropriate in Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., Tennessee Power Co. v. T. V. A., and Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, supra, are not apposite here. There the injuries were such that, had they not been inflicted by the Government, they clearly could not have been redressed. In Perkins v. Lukens *160Steel Co., it was not asserted that the authority under which the Government acted was invalid; only the correctness of an interpretation of a statute in the course of the exercise of an admitted power was challenged. In the Power cases protection from competition was sought; but the thrust of the law is to preserve competition, not to give protection from it. The action there challenged, furthermore, was not directed at named individuals. Here, on the other hand, petitioners seek to challenge governmental action stigmatizing them individually. They object, not to a particular erroneous application of a valid power, but to the validity of the regulation authorizing the action. They point to two types of injury, each of a sort which, were it not for principles of governmental immunity, would be clearly actionable at common law.
This controversy is therefore amenable to the judicial process.9 Its justiciability does not depend solely on the fact that the action challenged is defamatory. Not every injury inflicted by a defamatory statement of a government officer can be redressed in court. On the balance of all considerations, the exercise here of judicial power accords with traditional canons for access to courts without inroads on the effective conduct of government.
III.
This brings us to the merits of the claims before the Court. Petitioners are organizations which, on the face of the record, are engaged solely in charitable or insurance activities. They have been designated “communist” by the Attorney General of the United States. This desig*161nation imposes no legal sanction on these organizations other than that it serves as evidence in ridding the Government of persons reasonably suspected of disloyalty. It would be blindness, however, not to recognize that in the conditions of our time such designation drastically restricts the organizations, if it does not proscribe them. Potential members, contributors or beneficiaries of listed organizations may well be influenced by use of the designation, for instance, as ground for rejection of applications for commissions in the armed forces or for permits for meetings in the auditoriums of public housing projects. Compare Act of April 3, 1948, § 110 (c), 62 Stat. 143, 22 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 1508 (c). Yet, designation has been made without notice, without disclosure of any reasons justifying it, without opportunity to meet the undisclosed evidence or suspicion on which designation may have been based, and without opportunity to establish affirmatively that the aims and acts of the organization are innocent. It is claimed that thus to maim or decapitate, on the mere say-so of the Attorney General, an organization to all outward-seeming engaged in lawful objectives is so devoid of fundamental fairness as to offend the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Fairness of procedure is “due process in the primary sense.” Brinkerhoff-Faris Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673, 681. It is ingrained in our national traditions and is designed to maintain them. In a variety of situations the Court has enforced this requirement by checking attempts of executives, legislatures, and lower courts to disregard the deep-rooted demands of fair play enshrined in the Constitution. “[T]his court has never held, nor must we now be understood as holding, that administrative officers, when executing the provisions of a statute involving the liberty of persons, may disregard the fundamental principles that inhere in ‘due process of law’ as understood at the time of the adoption of the Con*162stitution. One of these principles is that no person shall be deprived of his liberty without opportunity, at some time, to be heard . . . The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86, 100-101. “[B]y ‘due process’ is meant one which, following the forms of law, is appropriate to the case, and just to the parties to be affected. It must be pursued in the ordinary mode prescribed by the law; it must be adapted to the end to be attained; and wherever it is necessary for the protection of the parties, it must give them an opportunity to be heard respecting the justice of the judgment sought.” Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701, 708. “Before its property can be taken under the edict of an administrative officer the appellant is entitled to a fair hearing upon the fundamental facts.” Southern R. Co. v. Virginia, 290 U. S. 190, 199. “Whether acting through its judiciary or through its legislature, a State may not deprive a person of all existing remedies for the enforcement of a right, which the State has no power to destroy, unless there is, or was, afforded to him some real opportunity to protect it.” Brinkerhoff-Faris Co. v. Hill, supra, 281 U. S. at 682.
The requirement of “due process” is not a fair-weather or timid assurance. It must be respected in periods of calm and in times of trouble; it protects aliens as well as citizens. But “due process,” unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances. Expressing as it does in its ultimate analysis respect enforced by law for that feeling of just treatment which has been evolved through centuries of Anglo-American constitutional history and civilization, “due process” cannot be imprisoned within the treacherous limits of any formula. Representing a profound attitude of fairness between man and man, and more particularly between the individual and government, “due process” is compounded of history, *163reason, the past course of decisions, and stout confidence in the strength of the democratic faith which we profess. Due process is not a mechanical instrument. It is not a yardstick. It is a process. It is a delicate process of adjustment inescapably involving the exercise of judgment by those whom the Constitution entrusted with the unfolding of the process.
Fully aware of the enormous powers thus given to the judiciary and especially to its Supreme Court, those who founded this Nation put their trust in a judiciary truly independent — in judges not subject to the fears or allurements of a limited tenure and by the very nature of their function detached from passing and partisan influences.
It may fairly be said that, barring only occasional and temporary lapses, this Court has not sought unduly to confine those who have the responsibility of governing by giving the great concept of due process doctrinaire scope. The Court has responded to the infinite variety and perplexity of the tasks of government by recognizing that what is unfair in one situation may be fair in another. Compare, for instance, Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, with Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U. S. 276, and see Communications Comm’n v. WJR, 337 U. S. 265, 275. Whether the ex parte procedure to which the petitioners were subjected duly observed “the rudiments of fair play,” Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Polt, 232 U. S. 165, 168, cannot, therefore, be tested by mere generalities or sentiments abstractly appealing. The precise nature of the interest that has been adversely affected, the manner in which this was done, the reasons for doing it, the available alternatives to the procedure that was followed, the protection implicit in the office of the functionary whose conduct is challenged, the balance of hurt complained of and good accomplished — these are some of the considerations that must enter into the judicial judgment.
*164Applying them to the immediate situation, we note that publicly designating an organization as within the proscribed categories of the Loyalty Order does not directly deprive anyone of liberty or property. Weight must also be given to the fact that such designation is not made by a minor official but by the highest law officer of the Government. Again, it is fair to emphasize that the individual’s interest is here to be weighed against a claim of the greatest of all public interests, that of national security. In striking the balance the relevant considerations must be fairly, which means coolly, weighed with due regard to the fact that this Court is not exercising a primary judgment but is sitting in judgment upon those who also have taken the oath to observe the Constitution and who have the responsibility for carrying on government.
But the significance we attach to general principles may turn the scale when competing claims appeal for supremacy. Achievements of our civilization as precious as they were hard won were summarized by Mr. Justice Brandéis when he wrote that “in the development of our liberty insistence upon procedural regularity has been a large factor.” Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 477 (dissenting). It is noteworthy that procedural safeguards constitute the major portion of our Bill of Rights. And so, no one now doubts that in the criminal law a “person’s right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court — are basic in our system of jurisprudence.” In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273. “The hearing, moreover, must be a real one, not a sham or a pretense.” Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 327. Nor is there doubt that notice and hearing are prerequisite to due process in civil proceedings, e. g., Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U. S. 413. Only the narrowest exceptions, justified by history become part of the habits of our people or *165by obvious necessity, are tolerated. Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94; Endicott Johnson Corp. v. Encyclopedia Press, 266 U. S. 285; see Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 536.
It is against this background of guiding considerations that we must view the rather novel aspects of the situation at hand. It is not true that the evils against which the Loyalty Order was directed are wholly devoid of analogy in our own history. The circumstances attending the Napoleonic conflicts, which gave rise to the Sedition Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 596, readily come to mind. But it is true that the executive action now under scrutiny is of a sort not heretofore challenged in this Court. That of itself does not justify the ex parte summary designation procedure. It does make it necessary to consider its validity when judged by our whole experience with the Due Process Clause.
IY.
The construction placed by this Court upon legislation conferring administrative powers shows consistent respect for a requirement of fair procedure before men are denied or deprived of rights. From a great mass of cases, running the full gamut of control over property and liberty, there emerges the principle that statutes should be interpreted, if explicit language does not preclude, so as to observe due process in its basic meaning. See, e. g., Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 337; American Power Co. v. S. E. C., 329 U. S. 90, 107-108; Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33, 49. Fair hearings have been held essential for rate determinations10 and, generally, to de*166prive persons of property.11 An opportunity to be heard is constitutionally necessary to deport persons even though they make no claim of citizenship, and is accorded to aliens seeking entry in the absence of specific directions to the contrary.12 Even in the distribution by the Government of benefits that maybe withheld, the opportunity of a hearing is deemed important.13
*167The high social and moral values inherent in the procedural safeguard of a fair hearing are attested by the narrowness and rarity of the instances when we have sustained executive action even though it did not observe the customary standards of procedural fairness. It is in these instances that constitutional compulsion regarding fair procedure was directly in issue. Thus it has been held that the Constitution cannot be invoked to prevent Congress from authorizing disbursements on the ex ■parte determination of an administrative officer that prescribed conditions are met. United States v. Babcock, 250 U. S. 328; cf. United States ex rel. Dunlap v. Black, 128 U. S. 40. The importation of goods is a privilege which, if Congress clearly so directs, may likewise be conditioned on ex parte findings. Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470; cf. Hilton v. Merritt, 110 U. S. 97. Only by a close division of the Court was it held that at a time of national emergency, when war has not been closed by formal peace, the Attorney General is not required to give a hearing before denying hospitality to an alien deemed dangerous to public security. Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160; United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 537. Again, when decisions of administrative officers in execution of legislation turn exclusively on considerations similar to those on which the legislative body could itself have acted summarily, notice and hearing may not be commanded by the Constitution. Bi-Metallic Co. v. Colorado, 239 U. S. 441.14 *168Finally, summary administrative procedure may be sanctioned by history or obvious necessity. But these are so rare as to be isolated instances. Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272; Springer v. United States, 102 U. S. 586; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133.
This Court is not alone in recognizing that the right to be heard before being condemned to suffer grievous loss of any kind, even though it may not involve the stigma and hardships of a criminal conviction, is a principle basic to our society. Regard for this principle has guided Congress and the Executive. Congress has often entrusted, as it may, protection of interests which it has created to administrative agencies rather than to the courts. But rarely has it authorized such agencies to act without those essential safeguards for fair judgment which in the course of centuries have come to be associated with due process. See Switchmen’s Union v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S. 297; Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568, 576, 577; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Labor Board, 261 U. S. 72.15 And when Congress *169has given an administrative agency discretion to determine its own procedure, the agency has rarely chosen to dispose of the rights of individuals without a hearing, however informal.16
*170The heart of the matter is that democracy implies respect for the elementary rights of men, however suspect or unworthy; a democratic. government must therefore practice fairness; and fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights.17
An opportunity to be heard may not seem vital when an issue relates only to technical questions susceptible *171of demonstrable proof on which evidence is not likely to be overlooked and argument on the meaning and worth of conflicting and cloudy data not apt to be helpful. But in other situations an admonition of Mr. Justice Holmes becomes relevant. “One has to remember that when one’s interest is keenly excited evidence gathers from all sides around the magnetic point . . . .”18 It should be particularly heeded at times of agitation and anxiety, when fear and suspicion impregnate the air we breathe. Compare Brown, The French Revolution in English History. “The plea that evidence of guilt must be secret is abhorrent to free men, because it provides a cloak for the malevolent, the misinformed, the meddlesome, and the corrupt to play the role of informer undetected and uncorrected.” United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 537, 551 (dissenting). Appearances in the dark are apt to look different in the light of day. -
Man being what he is cannot safely be trusted with complete immunity from outward responsibility in depriving others of their rights. At least such is the conviction underlying our Bill of Rights. That a conclusion satisfies one’s private conscience does not attest its reliability. The validity and moral authority of a conclusion largely depend on the mode by which it was reached. Secrecy is not congenial to truth-seeking and self-righteousness gives too slender an assurance of rightness. ^No better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss *172notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it. Nor has a better way been found for generating the feeling, so important to a popular government, that justice has been done.19
v.
The strength and significance of these considerations— considerations which go to the very ethos of the scheme of our society — give a ready answer to the problem before us. That a hearing has been thought indispensable in so many other situations, leaving the cases of denial exceptional, does not of itself prove that it must be found essential here. But it does place upon the Attorney General the burden of showing weighty reason for departing in this instance from a rule so deeply imbedded in history and in the demands of justice. Nothing in the Loyalty Order requires him to deny organizations opportunity to present their case. The Executive Order, defining his powers, directs only that designation shall be made “after appropriate investigation and determination.” This surely does not preclude an administrative procedure, however informal, which would incorporate the essentials of due process. Nothing has been presented to the Court to *173indicate that it will be impractical or prejudicial to a concrete public interest to disclose to organizations the nature of the case against them and to permit them to meet it if they can. Indeed, such a contention could hardly be made inasmuch as the Loyalty Order itself requires partial disclosure and hearing in proceedings against a Government employee who is a member of a proscribed organization. Whether such procedure sufficiently protects the rights of the employee is a different story. Such as it is, it affords evidence that the wholly summary process for the organizations is inadequate.20 And we have controlling proof that Congress did not think that the Attorney General’s procedure was indispensable for the protection of the public interest. The McCarran Act, passed under circumstances certainly not more serene than when the Loyalty Order was issued, grants organizations a full administrative hearing, subject to judicial review, before they are required to register as “Communist-action” or “Communist-front.” 21
We are not here dealing with the grant of Government largess. We have not before us t|ie measured action of Congress, with the pause that is properly engendered when the validity of legislation is assailed. The Attorney General is certainly not immune from the historic requirements of fairness merely because Ke acts, however conscientiously, in the name of security. Nor does he obtain immunity on the ground that .designation is not an “adjudication” or a “regulation” in the conventional use of those terms. Due process is not confined in its scope to the particular forms in which rights have heretofore been *174found to have been curtailed for want of procedural fairness. Due process is perhaps the most majestic concept in our whole constitutional system. While it contains the garnered wisdom of the past in assuring fundamental justice, it is also a living principle not confined to past instances.
Therefore the petitioners did set forth causes of action which the District Court should have entertained.

 The decisions are collected in the dissenting opinion in Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 705.

 A statute may of course confer standing even in this situation. Federal Communications Comm’n v. Sanders Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470; Columbia System v. United States, 316 U. S. 407; cf. Youngstown Co. v. United States, 295 U. S. 476; Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288.

 The Davis & Farnum case held that a subcontractor did not have standing to enjoin a municipal ordinance which prohibited a construction project in violation of a right of the owner of the land on which it was to be built. The Court held that the petitioner had no legal interest in the controversy, since his interest was only “indirect.”

 Government action is “final” in the sense here involved when at no future time will its impact on the petitioner become more conclusive, definite, or substantial. “Finality” is also employed in a different sense with which we are not here concerned, in reference to judicial action not subject to subsequent revisory executive or legislative action. Cf. United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40.

 The Court expressed the decision in terms of the nonlegislative character of the specification. But since the validity of the specification could be determined in an action for injunction or mandamus *156against the local officers, the decision does not establish that final administrative action is immune from review because it is not legislative in form.

 See also decisions treating as “justiciable” bills to enjoin regulations which create duties immediately enforceable by imposition of penalties. Assigned Car Cases, 274 U. S. 564; United States v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 293 U. S. 454.

 In the Los Angeles case the Court thus supported its conclusion that the bill was not justiciable under general equity powers: “The investigation was undertaken in aid of the legislative purpose of regulation. In conducting the investigation, and in making the report, the Commission performed a service specifically delegated and prescribed by Congress. Its conclusions, if erroneous in law, may be disregarded. But neither its utterances, nor its processes of reasoning, as distinguished from its acts, are a subject for injunction.” 273 U. S. at 314-315. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Labor Board, 261 U. S. 72, was a bill to enjoin the Railroad Labor Board from publishing that the petitioner had violated its decision. Decisions of the Board were not legally enforceable; and the Court therefore concluded that they violated “no legal or equitable right of the complaining company.” 261 U. S. at 85. The Court considered at length, however, the company’s argument that the Board had been given no jurisdiction to decide the particular issue involved. That it found it necessary to decide this issue against the company on the merits indicates that it thought a stronger ease for standing would have been presented had the decision been beyond the Board’s authority. In Ex parte Williams, 277 U. S. at 271, there is a suggestion that a litigant may have standing to enjoin a tax assessment when the challenge is to the validity of the statute authorizing the assessment, although there would be no standing to challenge the assessment on the ground that it denied equal protection of the laws.

 Compare the decisions which hold that certain executive officers are not liable in suits for damages for erroneous or even malicious conduct in office, so long as they are acting within the scope of the authority given them. Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U. S. 483; Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579.

 A Denver affiliate of the National Council, joined as petitioner in No. 7, has standing identical with its parent. The individual petitioners in that suit, however, have as officers of the Council an interest which is too remote to justify finding the issues justiciable as to them.

 The reasonableness of rates has of course been held in part a question for the courts. Ohio Valley Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U. S. 287; cf. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418. But to the extent that finality is accorded to the determination of an administrative agency, the Court has exacted a high standard *166of procedural fairness. Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Commission, 301 U. S. 292, 304; see I. C. C. v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 227 U. S. 88; United States v. Abilene & S. R. Co., 265 U. S. 274; West Ohio Gas Co. v. Commission (No. 1), 294 U. S. 63; Railroad Comm’n v. Pacific Gas Co., 302 U. S. 388; Morgan v. United States, 304 U. S. 1; cf. United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., 291 U. S. 457.

 In Southern R. Co. v. Virginia, 290 U. S. 190, the Court declared unconstitutional a state officer's ex parte order that a railroad install an overhead crossing. Compare Monongahela Bridge Co. v. United States, 216 U. S. 177, in which a comparable order of the Secretary of War, entered after hearing, was upheld. In decisions involving local taxation for improvements, the Court has required that owners be given a hearing on valuation as well as on the question whether their property has been benefited whenever that determination has not been legislatively made. See, e. g., Embree v. Kansas City Road Dist., 240 U. S. 242; cf. Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 337. And although an individual’s interest has been created by an ex parte decision, it may not be destroyed “without that character of notice and opportunity to be heard essential to due process of law.” United States ex rel. Turner v. Fisher, 222 U. S. 204, 208; Garfield v. Goldsby, 211 U. S. 249. See also Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505.

 The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86; see Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U. S. 454; Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33, 49; cf. United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 537. In Lloyd Sabaudo Societa v. Elting, 287 U. S. 329, the Court held that a steamship company required to pay a fine to obtain port clearance for a ship which had brought a diseased alien to this country was entitled to determination of the facts by fair procedure. The Court disapproved in part Oceanic Nav. Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320.

 In Dismuke v. United States, 297 U. S. 167, 172, the Court said that “in the absence of compelling language, resort to the courts to assert a right which the statute creates will be deemed to be curtailed only so far as authority to decide is given to the administrative officer. ... If he is authorized to determine questions of fact his *167decision must be accepted unless he exceeds his authority by making a determination which is arbitrary or capricious or unsupported by evidence, ... or by failing to follow a procedure which satisfies elementary standards of fairness and reasonableness essential to the due conduct of the proceeding which Congress has authorized . . . .”

 Thus, no hearing need be granted on the question whether property is needed for a public use. Rindge Co. v. Los Angeles, 262 U. S. 700. Cf. Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19; United States v. Bush & Co., 310 U. S. 371.

 Cf. Norwegian Nitrogen Co. v. United States, 288 U. S. 294. In recent customs legislation Congress has required a hearing on objections to appraisement. 38 Stat. 187, as amended, 19 U. S. C. § 1501; see Freund, Administrative Powers over Persons and Property, 163. In numberless other situations Congress has required the essentials of a hearing. Among those that have come before this Court are removal orders of the Federal Reserve Board, Board of Governors v. Agnew, 329 U. S. 441; determinations under the Hatch Act, Oklahoma v. Civil Service Comm’n, 330 U. S. 127; induction orders under the draft law, Estep v. United States, 327 U. S. 114; minimum price orders of the Secretary of Agriculture, Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288; price control, Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414; minimum wage determinations, Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126; labor relations regulation, Labor Board v. Mackay Radio Co., 304 U. S. 333; Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 47; Shields v. Utah Idaho R. Co., 305 U. S. 177; Inland Empire Council v. Millis, 325 U. S. 697.

 In 1941 the Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure reported that it “found in its investigation of the administrative process few instances of indifference on the part of the agencies to the basic values which underlie a fair hearing.” These values it defined as follows: “Before adverse action is to be taken by an agency, whether it be denying privileges to an applicant or bounties to a claimant, before a cease-and-desist order is issued or privileges or bounties are permanently withdrawn, before an individual is ordered directly to alter his method of business, or before discipline is imposed upon him, the individual immediately concerned should be apprised not only of the contemplated action with sufficient precision to permit his preparation to resist, but, before final action, he should be apprised of the evidence and contentions brought forward against him so that he may meet them. He must be offered a forum which provides him with an opportunity to bring his own contentions home to those who will adjudicate the controversy in which he is concerned. The forum itself must be one which is prepared to receive and consider all that he offers which is relevant to the controversy.” Final Report, p. 62.
The monographs prepared under the direction of the Committee support the conclusion that by statutory direction or administrative interpretation agencies consistently grant at least minimum rights of hearing. For example, the Walsh-Healey Act is enforceable by the Government’s recovery of liquidated damages and by its withholding further contracts for a three-year period. Administrative hearings are employed for all contested action. Monograph of the Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure, S. Doc. No. 186, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., Part 1, p. 7. It is generally the practice of the Veterans’ Administration to grant hearings on request of claimants. Id., Part 2, p. 11. Hearings are granted on request on applications for permits from the Federal Alcohol Administration, id., Part 5, p. 6, and when licenses granted under the Grain Standards Act are suspended or revoked, id., Part 7, p. 10. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation determines admissibility of banks to membership without giving the applicant a hearing or formal opportunity to contradict the bank examiner’s report. However, grounds for disapproval are reported to the applicant. Id., Part 13, *170p. 15. War Department officials grant hearings on applications to construct installations in navigable waters, except when it is clear that the application should or should not be granted. S. Doc. No. 10, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 2, p. 7. A 1939 amendment to the social security law requires hearings in the event a claimant is dissatisfied with the disposition of the case by the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance. Id., Part 3, p. 14. The Department of the Interior grants hearings in allocating grazing lands, id., Part 7, pp. 9, 10; in disposing of applications for mineral leases, except where hearing would serve no useful purpose, id., at 26; and in determining questions of fact necessary to issuing mining patents, id., at 36. Hearings are frequently employed in investigations under flexible tariff procedures of the Tariff Commission, id., Part 14, p. 12.

 The importance of opportunity to be heard is recognized as well by the English courts. The leading case is Board of Education v. Rice, [1911] A. C. 179. Lord Loreburn said in dictum, “In such cases the Board of Education will have to ascertain the law and also to ascertain the facts. I need not add that in doing either they must act in good faith and fairly listen to both sides, for that is a duty lying upon every one who decides anything. . . . They can obtain information in any way they think best, always giving a fair opportunity to those who are parties in the controversy for correcting or contradicting any relevant statement prejudicial to their view.” Id., at 182. This principle has been approved in a long line of decisions. See Local Government Board v. Arlidge, [1915] A. C. 120, 132-133; General Medical Council v. Spackman, [1943] A. C. 627; Errington v. Minister of Health, [1935] 1 K. B. 249; Rex v. Westminster, [1941] 1 K. B. 53. The Committee on Ministers’ Powers reported in 1936 that while in administrative determination a Minister may “depart from the usual forms of legal procedure or from the common law rules of evidence, he ought not to depart from or offend against ‘natural justice.’ ” Three principles of “natural justice” were *171stated to be that “a man may not be a judge in his own cause,” that “No party ought to be condemned unheard,” and that “a party is entitled to know the reason for the decision.” Report of Committee on Ministers’ Powers, Cmd. 4060, pp. 75-80.

 Mr. Justice Holmes made this remark in a letter to Mr. Arthur Garfield Hays in 1928. See Bent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 312.

 “In a government like ours, entirely popular, care should be taken in every part of the system, not only to do right, but to satisfy the community that right is done.” 5 The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, 163. The same thought is reflected in a recent opinion by the Lord Chief Justice. A witness in a criminal case had been interrogated by the court in the absence of the defendant. Quashing the conviction, Lord Goddard said: “That is a matter which cannot possibly be justified. I am not suggesting for one moment that the justices had any sinister or improper motive in acting as they did. It may be that they sent for this officer in the interests of the accused; it may be that the information which the officer gave was in the interests of the accused. That does not matter. Time and again this court has said that justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done. . . .” Rex v. Justices of Bodmin, [1947] 1 K. B. 321, 325.

 Other evidence is furnished by the State of New York. The Feinberg Law, comparable in purpose and in its scheme to the Loyalty Order, makes notice and hearing prerequisite to designation of organizations. See Thompson v. Wallin, 301 N. Y. 476, 494, 95 N. E. 2d 806, 814-815.

 Act of September 23,1950, §§ 13,14, 64 Stat. 987, 998,1001.