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Article 2
• Right to life
• Prohibition of cruel treatment
• Prohibition of slavery
• Prohibition of torture
• Protection from unjustified restraint
The protection of life, security, and physical integrity are guaranteed.
Slavery, slavery-like practices, inhuman and cruel, degrading and humiliating
treatments, physical or moral torture, services and mistreatments inflicted on
children and all forms of the degradation of Man[,] are forbidden and punished by the
law.
Article 3
No one may be deprived of his liberty if he is not prosecuted for acts specified and
punishable by the law.
• Power to deport citizens
No one may only be arrested, detained, deported or exiled by virtue of the law.
• Right to fair trial
Article 4
All Burkinabe and all persons living in Burkina Faso benefit from an equal protection
of the law. All have the right to have their case heard by an independent and
impartial jurisdiction.
• Presumption of innocence in trials
Any accused is presumed innocent until his guilt has been established.
• Right to counsel
The right to a defense, including that of freely choosing one's defender is guaranteed
before all the jurisdictions.
• Protection from ex post facto laws
• Principle of no punishment without law
Article 5
Anything which is not forbidden by the law may not be hindered and no one can be
constrained to do that which [the law] does not order.
The penal law does not have retroactive effect. One may only be judged and
punished by virtue of a law promulgated and published prior to the punishable act.
Punishment is personal and individual.
• Inalienable rights
• Right to privacy
Article 6
The residence, the domicile, private and family life, [and] the secrecy of
correspondence of every person, are inviolable.
It can only be infringed according to the forms and in the cases specified by the law.
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom of religion
Article 7
The freedom of belief, of non-belief, of conscience, of religious opinion, [of]
philosophy, of exercise of belief, the freedom of assembly, the free practice of
custom as well as the freedom of procession and of demonstration, are guaranteed
by this Constitution, under reserve of respect for the law, for public order, for good
morals and for the human person.
• Freedom of expression
• Right to information
• Freedom of opinion/thought/conscience
• Freedom of press
Article 8
The freedoms of opinion, of the press and the right to information are guaranteed.
Every person has the right to express and to disseminate his opinions within the
order of the laws and regulations in force.
Burkina Faso 1991 (rev. 2012)
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