TITLE II. OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Article 7
The human person is sacred and has the right to life. The State has the absolute obligation to respect it and to protect it.
Each citizen has the right to the free development and to the full development of his person within respect for the rights of others, of the public order, of ethics and of morals.
Article 8
All citizens are equal before the law.
Any discrimination founded on origin, social or material situation, racial, ethnic or departmental affiliation, gender, education, language, religion, philosophy or place of residence is prohibited, under reserve for the provisions of Articles 58 and 96.
The woman has the same rights as the man. The law guarantees and assures their promotion and their representativeness in all political, elective and administrative functions.
Article 9
The freedom of the human person is inviolable.
No one may be arbitrarily accused, arrested or detained.
Any accused is presumed innocent until his culpability has been established following a procedure that guarantees him the rights of defense.
Any act of torture, any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is prohibited.
Article 10
Any citizen, any agent of the State, is not bound by the duty of obeisance when the order received constitutes a manifest threat to the respect for human rights and public freedoms.
The order of a superior or of any authority may not be invoked, in any case, to justify these practices.
Any individual, any agent of the State, any public authority who would be rendered culpable of acts of torture or of cruel and inhuman treatment, either on his own initiative, or under instructions, is punished according to the law.
Article 11
War crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide are punished within the conditions determined by the law. They are imprescriptible.
Any propaganda or any incitement to ethnic hatred, to violence or to civil war constitutes a crime.
Article 12
Any citizen has the right, in any place, to the recognition of his juridical personality.
Article 13
Congolese citizenship is guaranteed by the law. Any Congolese has the right to change his nationality or to acquire a second one.
Article 14
The domicile is inviolable.
Search may only be ordered within the forms and the conditions specified by the law.
Article 15
The right of asylum is granted to foreign nationals within the conditions determined by the law.
Article 16
Any citizen has the right to circulate freely on the national territory.
He has the right to freely exit the national territory, if he is not the object of penal prosecution, and to return to it.
Article 17
The right to property and the right of succession are guaranteed. No one may be deprived of their property except for cause of public utility, and subject to a fair and prior indemnification, within the conditions specified by the law.
Article 18
The freedom of belief and the freedom of conscience are inviolable.
The use of religion for political ends is prohibited.
Any manifestation of manipulation and of forced recruitment of the consciences, of constraints of all natures imposed by any religious, philosophical, political and sectarian fanaticism are punished by the law.
Article 19
Any citizen has the right to express and to freely diffuse his opinion by words, in writing, by images or all other mean of communication.
The freedom of information and communication is guaranteed.
Censorship is prohibited.
The access to the sources of information is free.
Every citizen has the right to information and to communication.
The activities relative to these domains are exercised within the respect for the law.
Article 20
The secrecy of correspondence, of telecommunications, or of any other form of communication may not be violated, except in the cases specified by the law.
Article 21
The State recognizes and guarantees, within the conditions established by law, the freedom of movement, of association, of assembly, of procession and of manifestation.
Article 22
The right to culture and to the respect for the cultural identity of each citizen is guaranteed.
The exercise of this right must not cause prejudice, to the public order, or to others, or to the national unity.
Article 23
The right to education is guaranteed. The equal access to education and to professional training is guaranteed.
The education, dispensed in the public establishments, is gratuitous.
School attendance is obligatory until the age of sixteen years.
The right to create private establishments of education, governed by the law, is guaranteed.
Article 24
The State recognizes, to all citizens, the right to work and must create the conditions which render the enjoyment of this right effective.
Article 25
With the exception of the agents of the public force, the Congolese citizens enjoy the syndical freedoms and the right to strike within the conditions established by the law.
Article 26
No one shall be compelled to forced labor, except in the case of a sentence deprivative of liberty pronounced by a jurisdiction legally established.
No one may be submitted to slavery.
Article 27
Every person has the right, within the respect for the law, to engage in activity in the sectors of his choice.
Article 28
Every person has the right to rest and to leisure, notably to a limitation of the duration of work and to periodic vacations as well as to the remuneration of the holidays within the conditions determined by the law.
Article 29
Every citizen has the right to the protection of moral and material interests, from all scientific, literary or artistic work, of which he is the author.
The sequestration, the seizure, the confiscation, the interdiction of all or a part of any publication, of any recording or of other means of information or of communication may not be done except by virtue of a decision of justice.
Article 30
The State is the guarantor of the public health.
The aged persons and the handicapped persons have the right to measures of protection in relation to their physical, moral or other needs, in view of their full development
The right to create private socio-sanitary establishments, regulated by the law, is guaranteed.
Article 31
The State has the obligation to assist the family in its mission as guardian of the morality and of the values compatible with the republican order.
The rights of the mother and of the child are guaranteed.
Article 32
Marriage and family are under the protection of the law.
All the children, who have they been born within the marriage or outside the marriage, have, concerning their parents, the same rights and duties.
They enjoy the same protection in terms of the law.
Parents have obligations and duties concerning their children, whether they have been born within the marriage or outside the marriage.
The law establishes the juridical conditions of the marriage and of the family.
Article 33
Every child, without discrimination of whatever form that may be, has the right, on the part of his family, of society and of the State, to measures of protection demanded by his condition.
Article 34
The State must protect the children and the adolescents against economical or social exploitation.
Work by children under sixteen years of age is prohibited.
Article 35
Every citizen has the right to a healthy, satisfying and lasting environment and has the duty to defend it.
The State sees to the protection and to the conservation of the environment.
Article 36
The conditions of storage, of handling, of incineration and of disposal of toxic wastes, pollutants or radioactive materials originating from factories and other industrial or artisan sites, installed on the national territory, are established by the law.
All pollution or destruction resulting from an economical activity gives rise to a compensation.
The law determines the nature of the compensatory measures and the modalities of their execution.
Article 37
The transit, the importation, the storage, landfill, and dumping in the continental waters and the maritime spaces under national jurisdiction, the expanding in the airspace of toxic wastes, radioactive pollutants or of any other dangerous product, originating or not from abroad, constitute a crime punished by the law.
Article 38
Every act, every agreement, every convention, every administrative arrangement of any other act, which has as a direct consequence to deprive the Nation of all or a part of its own means of existence deriving from its resources or from its natural wealth, is considered as an imprescriptible crime of pillage and punished by the law.
Article 39
The acts referred to in the preceding Article as well as attempts of them, whatever the modalities may be, if they are the acts of a constituted authority, are, accordingly to the case, punished as a crime of high treason or as an act of breach of duty.
Article 40
Every citizen has the right to present requests to the appropriate organs of the State.
Article 41
Every citizen, who suffers a prejudice by an act of the administration, has the right to act in justice, in the forms determined by the law.
Article 42
Foreigners benefit, on the territory of the Republic of the Congo, from the same rights and freedoms as nationals within the conditions determined by the treaties and the laws, under reserve of reciprocity.
