TITLE II. OF THE CHARTER OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND CITIZEN
Article 19
The rights and duties proclaimed and guaranteed, between others, by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Pacts related to human rights, the African Charter of human and community rights, the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination at towards women and the Convention related to children’s rights are an integral part of the Constitution of the Republic of Burundi.
These fundamental rights are not the object of any restriction or derogation, except in certain circumstances justifiable by the general interest or the protection of a fundamental right.
Article 20
All the citizens have rights and duties.
1. OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE CITIZEN
Article 21
Human dignity is respected and protected. All violations of human dignity are punishable by the penal code.
Article 22
All citizens are equal before the law, which assures them equal protection.
None may be the object of discrimination, particularly discrimination against their origin, race, ethnicity, sex, color, language, social situation, religious, philosophical or political convictions, physical or mental handicap, HIV/AIDs infection or any other incurable malady.
Article 23
Neither the State nor its organs may treat anyone in an arbitrary manner.
The State had the obligation to indemnify all victims of arbitrary treatment by the State or its organs.
Article 24
All women and men have the right to life.
Article 25
All women and men have the right liberty, notably to physical and psychic integrity and the freedom of movement. No one may be submitted to torture, cruel, inhumane, or degrading torture or punishment.
Article 26
No one may be kept in slavery or servitude. Slavery and human trafficking are prohibited in all their forms.
Article 27
The State ensures, to the extent possible, that all citizens dispose of the means to carry out an existence of human dignity.
Article 28
All women and men have the right to the respect of their private and family life, their domicile and their personal communications.
Article 29
The liberty to marry is guaranteed, as is the right to choose one’s partner. Marriage may not occur without the freedom and full consent of the future spouses.
Marriage between two people of the same sex is prohibited.
Article 30
The family is the natural, cellular base of society. Marriage is its legitimate foundation. The family and marriage are under the State’s particular protection of the State.
The parents have the natural right and duty to educate and raise their children. The State and its public collectivities support this responsibility.
All children have the right, from their families and the state, to measures of special protection due to their status as minors.
Article 31
The liberty of expression is guaranteed. The State respects the liberty of religion, thought, consciousness and opinion.
Article 32
The liberty of reunion and association is guaranteed, as is the right to create associations or organization conforming to the law.
Article 33
All Burundi citizens have the right to circulate and establish themselves freely within the national territory, as well as the freedom to leave and return.
Article 34
No one may be arbitrarily deprived of his or her nationality, nor the right to change it.
Article 35
The state assures the proper management and rational use of the nation’s natural resources, all in preserving the environment and the conservation of these resources for generations to come.
Article 36
All persons have the right to property.
No one may be deprived of his or her property except for the public’s benefit, in the cases and manner established by the law and subject to a fair and prior indemnification, or in the execution of a final judicial decision.
Article 37
The rights to establish unions and to affiliate with them, as well as the right to strike are recognized. The law may regulate the exercise of these rights and prohibit certain groups of people from striking.
In all cases, these rights are prohibited to members of security or defense forces.
Article 38
All people have the right, within a judicial or administrative procedure, to have their case heard fairly and to receive a judgment within a reasonable delay.
Article 39
No one may be deprived of his or her liberty, if such deprivation does not conform to the law.
No one may be inculpated, arrested, detained or judged except in the cases determined by the law promulgated anteriorly to the facts by which the person is judged.
The right to legal defense in guaranteed before all jurisdictions.
None one may be deprived, against his or her will, of the judge the law assigns to him or her.
Article 40
All persons accused of a derelict act is presumed innocent until his or her guilt is legally established by a public process during which all the necessary guarantees for his or her free defense has been assured.
Article 41
No one may be condemned for the acts or omissions that, at the moment they were committed, did not constitute infractions.
Similarly, no one may be forced to submit to a punishment that is greater than that mandated for the infraction at the time that it was committed.
Article 42
No one may be forced to submit to detention orders except in the cases and the manners provisioned by the law notably for reasons relating to public order or the state’s security.
Article 43
No one may be the object of arbitrary intrusion into his or her private life, family, domicile or his or her correspondence, nor attacks against his or her honor or reputation.
Police searches or home visits by enforcement may not be ordered except in the forms and conditions provisioned by the law.
Privacy in one’s correspondence and communications is guaranteed, respecting the forms and conditions determined by the law.
Article 44
All children have the right to particular measures to assure or ameliorate the care necessary to their wellbeing, health, physical security protection against abuse, violence or exploitation.
Article 45
No child may be use directly in a military conflict. The protection of children is assured in periods of military conflict.
Article 46
No infant may be detained unless detention is the last resort, in which case the detention must have the shortest duration possible.
All infants have the right to be separated from detainees older than 16 years of age and have the conditions of his or her detention adapted to his or her age.
Article 47
All restrictions of a fundamental right must be legally founded; they must be justified by the general interest or by the protection of someone else’s fundamental rights; and they must be proportional to the envisioned goal of the restriction.
Article 48
The judicial, administrative, and institutional orders must respect citizen’s fundamental rights. The Constitution is the supreme law. The legislature, executive and the judicial must respect it. All laws that do not conform to the Constitution are stricken as null and void.
Article 49
No citizen may be forced into exile.
Article 50
The right to asylum is recognized within the conditions defined by the law.
Extradition is not authorized except within the limits provisioned by the law.
No Burundi citizen may be extradited abroad unless he or she is pursued by an international criminal jurisdiction for crimes of genocide, war or other crimes against humanity.
Article 51
All Burundi citizens have the right to participate, either directly or indirectly through representatives, in the direction and management of the State’s affairs restricted only by legal conditions of age and capacity.
All Burundi citizens also have the right of access to the public functions of their country.
Article 52
All persons are entitled to obtain the satisfaction of their economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to their dignity and to the free development of their persons, due to the national effort and the proper management of the country’s resources.
Article 53
All citizens have a right to equal access to instruction, education and culture.
The State has the responsibility to organize public education and to facilitate access to it.
However, the right to found private schools is guaranteed within the conditions fixed by the law.
Article 54
The state recognizes to all citizens the right to work and endeavors to create the conditions that render effective the enjoyment of this right. It recognizes the right of all persons to enjoy proper and satisfying work conditions and guarantees to the laborer the just compensation for his or her services or production.
Article 55
All persons have the right to access healthcare.
Article 56
The state has the obligation to prioritize the development of the country, in particular its rural development.
Article 57
All people at equal competence, without any discrimination, have the right to an equal salary for equal work done.
Article 58
Each person has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests of his or her scientific, literary or artistic creation.
Article 59
All foreigners on the Republic’s territory enjoy the protection accorded to people and their property by virtue of the provisions in the present Constitution and the law.
Any foreigner with a proceeding against them for crimes against humanity, genocide, or war, or acts of terrorism may be extradited.
Article 60
The judiciary power, guardian of the rights and the public liberties, assure the respect of these rights and liberties in the conditions provisioned by the law.
Article 61
No one may abuse the rights recognized by the Constitution or by the law to compromise the national unity, peace, democracy, the independence of Burundi, or attack the secularization of the State or violate in any other manner the present Constitution.
2. Of the Fundamental Responsibilities of the Individual and the Citizen
Article 62
All persons have the responsibility to respect their compatriots and to show them consideration, without any discrimination.
Article 63
Each citizen has responsibilities towards their family, the society, the State and the other public collectivities.
Article 64
Each Burundi citizen has the responsibility to preserve and reinforce the national unity conforming to the Charter of National Unity.
Article 65
Each person is held to respect the laws and the institutions of the Republic.
Article 66
Each Burundi citizen has the responsibility to preserve the harmonious development of the family and to act in favor of the cohesion and respect of this family, to respect at all moments his or her parents, to care for and assist them when necessary.
Article 67
Each individual has the right to respect and to consider his or her peer without any discrimination, to carry out relations that permit the promotion, safeguard, and reinforcement of respect and tolerance.
Article 68
Each Burundi citizen must guard, in his relations with the society, the preservation and the reinforcement of the country’s cultural values and contribute to the establishment of a morally healthy society.
Article 69
The public goods are sacred and inviolable. Each citizen is held to scrupulously respect and protect them. Each Burundi citizen has the job of defending the patrimony of the nation.
All action of sabotage, vandalism, corruption, misappropriation, dilapidation, or all other acts that jeopardize public benefits is punishable according to the conditions provisioned by the law.
Article 70
All citizens are held to carry out their civic obligations and to defend the country.
Each has the responsibility to work for the community benefit and to fulfill his or her professional obligations.
All citizens are equal before public criminal charges. No one may receive exoneration except by law.
The state may proclaim the solidarity of all before the charges that result in natural and national calamities.
Article 71
All Burundi citizens charged with a public function or elected to a political function have the responsibility to accomplish them with conscientiousness, probity, devotion and loyalty in the general interest.
Article 72
Each Burundi citizen has the responsibility of defending the national independence and the integrity of the territory.
All citizens have the sacred responsibility to watch over and participate in the defense of his or her patrimony.
All Burundi citizens, and all foreigners that are on the territory of the Republic of Burundi, have the responsibility to not compromise the security of the State.
Article 73
Every individual has the responsibility to contribute to the safeguarding of peace, democracy and social justice.
Article 74
All Burundi citizens have the responsibility to contribute, by his or her labor, to the construction and the prosperity of the country.
