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Preamble
Trusting in the omnipotence of Allah, the Mauritanian people proclaim their will to guarantee the
integrity of its Territory, its Independence, and its National Unity and to assume its free political,
economic and social evolution.
Strong from its spiritual values and from the radiation of its civilization, it also proclaims, solemnly, its
attachment to Islam and to the principles of democracy as they have been defined by the Universal
Declaration of the Rights of Man of 10 December 1948 and by the African Charter of the Rights of
Man and of Peoples of 28 June 1981 as well as in the other international conventions to which
Mauritania has subscribed.
Considering that the liberty, the equality, and the dignity of Man cannot be assured except in a
society which consecrates the primacy of law, concerned by creating durable conditions for a
harmonious social evolution, respectful of the precepts of Islam, sole source of law and open to the
exigencies of the modern world, the Mauritanian people proclaim, in particular, the intangible
guarantee of the following rights and principles:
• the right to equality;
• the fundamental freedoms and rights of the human person;
• the right of property;
• the political freedoms and the trade union [syndicales] freedoms;
• the economic and social rights;
• the rights attached to the family, basic unit of the Islamic society.
United throughout history, by shared moral and spiritual values and aspiring to a common future, the
Mauritanian People recognize and proclaim their cultural diversity, base of national unity and of
social cohesion, and its corollary, the right to be different [à la difference]. The Arabic language,
official language of the country and the other national languages, the Poular, the Soninké and the
Wolof, constitute, each in itself, a national common patrimony to all Mauritanians that the State must,
in the name of all, preserve and promote.
Conscious of the necessity of strengthening the ties with [their] brother peoples, the Mauritanian
people, Muslim people, Arab and African, proclaim that they will work for the realization of the unity
of the Grand Maghreb, of the Arab Nation and of Africa and for the consolidation of peace in the
world.
Title I
General Provisions and Fundamental Principles
Article 1
Mauritania is an Islamic, indivisible, democratic, and social Republic.
The Republic assures to all citizens without distinction of origin, of race, of sex, or of social condition,
equality before the law.
All particularist propaganda of racial or ethnic character is punished by the law.
Mauritania 1991 (rev. 2012)
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