Source/Freedom of Association

What is the oldest written source that mentions this right?

John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689) primarily concerns religious associations, but he extends certain arguments to associations in general. The text in the next paragraph is Boyd’s summarization (241), where sections in quotes come directly from “A Letter.” As Boyd notes, though Locke defends policies that allow freer association, he does so because of their practical benefits, not because it is a fundamental right (241).

“Suppose this Business of Religion were let alone,” Locke hypothesizes, “and that there were some other Distinction made between men and men, upon account of their different Complexions, Shapes, and Features.” Under conditions of differential treatment, such persons, “united together by one common persecution,” would become just as dangerous and disruptive. Conversely, if the state eliminated special privileges, on the one hand, or disproportionate burdens, on the other, then supposedly intractable religious or ethnic affiliations would become matters of complete indifference, no more or less contentious than other private decisions about how to spend one’s money, manage one’s estates, or marry off one’s daughter.

In 1776, Richard Price, a British writer who supported the American revolution published Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. Unlike other commentaries on civil rights, he includes discussion on free assembly. He describes a prohibition on “associating for any purposes, except when leave should be given us by a Lord Lieutenant or Viceroy” as being part of a “state of oppression which no country can endure.” Though he does not phrase it as a fundamental right, the fact that Price deems draconian restrictions on association oppressive implies a belief in at least a limited freedom of association.

Though Enlightenment commentators like Locke argued for and against greater freedom to associate. However, the first to mention it as an absolute right was John Stuart Mill, who argues in On Liberty that “from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived” (1859, 16).

What is the oldest written source in this country that mentions this right?

Australia

Australia has detailed records of its constitutional convention, which occurred in the 1890s. In 1897. One speaker alluded to the power of free association: “The English feel the vigor of their public spirit; they have experienced the vigilance of a free press, and the power of associations and public meetings.”

Botswana

Chapter 2 of Botswana’s Constitution (1966) guarantees “freedom of conscience, of expression and of assembly and association.”

Brazil

Brazil’s constitution (1988) has exceptionally detailed freedom of association provisions. Title II-I-5 states that:

- there is total freedom of association for lawful purposes, but any paramilitary association is prohibited;

- creation of associations and, as set forth in law, of cooperatives, requires no authorization, prohibiting state interference in their operations;

- associations may be compulsorily dissolved or their activities suspended only by a judicial decision, which in the former case must be a final and unappealable decision;

- no one can be compelled to join an association or to remain in one;

- when expressly authorized, associations have standing to represent their members judicially and extrajudicially

Canada

Chapter 345 Section 5 of Saskatchewan’s Bill of Rights (1947) states that “every person and every class of persons shall enjoy the right to peaceable assembly with others and to form with others associations of any character under the law.”

Part 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights (1960) lists “freedom of assembly and association” as a guaranteed right. This was an ordinary act of parliament, and it has been replaced by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an amendment to the Canadian Constitution.

China

Chapter 2-4 of the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China (1912) states that “citizens shall have the freedom of speech, of composition, of publication, of assembly and of association.”

The 1912 Republic of China Constitution refers to the one adopted by the nationalist government on the mainland, led by Sun Yat-sen. Despite its lofty ideals, this government never really maintained power. After a period of instability and civil war, the CCP forced the nationalist government to retreat to Taiwan, which is known now as the Republic of China. Taiwan suspended its constitution, and it was under a repressive martial-law system until 1987. It is now a constitutional democracy, and freedom of association is protected in its constitution. The PRC constitution claims to protect freedom of association, among other civil liberties.

Estonia

Section II-18 of Estonia’s first constitution (1920) states that “The forming of associations and unions is free in Esthonia."

France

Title I of the French Constitution of 1791 guarantees the right of peaceful assembly.

“Liberty to citizens to assemble peaceably and without arms in accordance with police regulations.”

Though the French Constitution of 1791 protected the right to assemble, French revolutionaries considered explicitly excluding free association (Boyd 257). The French enacted a law protecting free association in 1901, and enshrined it in their constitution in 1971 (Boyd 2008, 237).

Germany

The Weimar Constitution (1919) established freedom of association.

Article 123: “All Germans have the right to assembly peacefully and unarmed without giving notice and without special permission.”

Article 124: “All Germans have the right to form associations and societies for purposes not contrary to the criminal law.”

India

The following quote was attributed to Gandhi in 1922:

“Freedom of association is truly respected when assemblies of people can discuss even revolutionary projects, the State relying upon the force of public opinion and the civil police, not the savage military at its disposal, to crush any actual outbreak of revolution that is designed to confound public opinion and the State representing it.., The fight for swaraj means a fight for this threefold freedom before all else."

Part III Article 19 of the Indian Constitution (1950) grants citizens the right to “form associations or unions” (Dalton).

Republic of Ireland

Article 40 of the Irish Constitution (1940) guarantees “the right of the citizens to form associations and unions.”

Italy

Part 1 Title 1 Article 18 of the Italian Constitution (1947) states that:

- “Citizens have the right to form associations freely and without authorization for those ends that are not forbidden by criminal law.”

- “Secret associations and associations that, even indirectly, pursue political aims by means of organisations having a military character shall be forbidden.”

Japan

Chapter III Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution (1947): “Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed.”

Additionally, though finding direct texts has proven difficult, there have been political movements for greater political expression since the pre-war era. The freedom and popular rights movement existed throughout the second half of the 19th century, and its members advocated for increased freedom of assembly beginning no later than 1886 (Tierney 2013, 21).

Latvia

The Latvian Constitution added a section on fundamental rights in 1998. Article 102 states that “everyone has the right to form and join associations, political parties and other public organisations.”

Mexico

From Section 1 Article 9 the Mexican Constitution of 1857: “No one shall be deprived of the right peaceably to assemble or to come together for any lawful purpose; but only citizens shall be permitted to exercise this right for the purpose of taking part in the political affairs of the country. No armed assembly shall have the right to deliberate.”

New Zealand

Part 2 Section 17 of the Bill of Rights Act (1990) states that, “Everyone has the right to freedom of association.”

Nigeria

Chapter IV Section 37 of the constitution of the Second Republic (1979) states that “every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and any political party, trade union, or other association for the protection of his interests.”

Pakistan

The following is from Part II, Chapter I, Section 17 of Pakistan’s current constitution (1973).

“Every citizen shall have the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, public order or morality.”

“Every citizen, not being in the service of Pakistan, shall have the right to form or be a member of a political party, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan and such law shall provide that where the Federal Government declares that any political party has been formed or is operating in a manner prejudicial to the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, the Federal Government shall, within fifteen days of such declaration, refer the matter to the Supreme Court whose decision on such reference shall be final.”

Portugal

Article 46 of the Portugese Constitution (1976):

“Citizens shall possess the right to freely associate with one another without requiring any authorisation, on condition that such associations are not intended to promote violence and their purposes are not contrary to the criminal law.”

“Associations shall pursue their purposes freely and without interference from the public authorities and shall not be dissolved by the state or have their activities suspended, except in such cases as the law may provide for and then only by judicial order.”

“No one shall be obliged to belong to an association, or be coerced to remain therein by any means.”

“Armed associations, military, militarised or paramilitary-type associations and organisations that are racist or display a fascist ideology shall not be permitted.”

South Africa

Chapter 3 section 17 of the 1993 Interim Constitution states that “every person shall have the right to freedom of association.”

South Korea

Chapter two Article Ten of the Constitution (1948): “All citizens shall enjoy freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of assembly and association.”

United Kingdom

The 1990 Human Rights Act protects the Right to assemble and associate, subject to reasonable and proportionate restrictions. The HRA primarily serves to codify the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law (the ECHR and its associated court are not related to the EU, and the UK is still a signatory).

In 1776, Richard Price, a British writer who supported the American revolution published Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. Unlike other commentaries on civil rights, he includes discussion on free assembly. He describes a prohibition on “associating for any purposes, except when leave should be given us by a Lord Lieutenant or Viceroy” as being part of a “state of oppression which no country can endure.” Though he does not phrase it as a fundamental right, the fact that Price deems draconian restrictions on association oppressive implies a belief in at least a limited freedom of association. This is the first instance I could find of a political theorist invoking the concept of freedom of association (or the lack thereof).

There is a more explicit case for free association in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859). Mill lays a broad notion of individual liberty. He then argues that “from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived (16).”

Before any British thinkers espoused freedom of association as a right, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and David Hume addressed the issue (as Boyd helpfully summarizes). Hobbes detested associations, referring to them as “lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man” (257).

Locke disagreed with Hobbes’ cynical perspective on groups. John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration” primarily concerns religious associations, but he extends certain arguments to associations in general. The italicized text below is Boyd’s summarization (241), where sections in quotes come directly from “A Letter.” As Boyd notes, though Locke defends policies that allow freer association, he does so because of their practical benefits, not because it is a fundamental right (2008, 241).

“Suppose this Business of Religion were let alone,” Locke hypothesizes, “and that there were some other Distinction made between men and men, upon account of their different Complexions, Shapes, and Features.” Under conditions of differential treatment, such persons, “united together by one common persecution,” would become just as dangerous and disruptive.26 Conversely, if the state eliminated special privileges, on the one hand, or disproportionate burdens, on the other, then supposedly intractable religious or ethnic affiliations would become matters of complete indifference, no more or less contentious than other private decisions about how to spend one’s money, manage one’s estates, or marry off one’s daughter. Finally, David Hume’s “Of Parties in General” (1742) is another important piece of Enlightenment work skeptical of associations. His position is more nuanced that Hobbes; he understands that association may exist for different purposes. Factions “of interest” are deemed less dangerous than factions “of principle.” Regarding factions of principle, he wonders the following: “But where the difference of principle is attended with no contrariety of action, but every one may follow his own way, without interfering with his neighbour, as happens in all religious controversies; what madness, what fury can beget such unhappy and such fatal divisions?”

United States

Listed at the bottom of this section is language from the State Constitutions of New Hampshire and North Carolina and the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, all from 1776, which articulate the right to assemble (assembly and association are not always interchangeable, but many constitutions group them together). These documents all contain rights to assemble written in remarkably similar language, and they describe the right as politically driven. These were the oldest references to something like the right of association in governing documents.

Despite modern views of assembly as related to association, at the time of America’s founding, it would have been better understood as related to the right to petition. According to Congress’s online annotated Constitution, the assembly clause meant that the people have a right to assemble in order to petition the government. The site says that assembly was initially seen as a “subordinate and instrumental” right ("Freedom of Assembly and Petition"). The aforementioned state constitutions should be interpreted the same way. In fact, this is even more clear in these state constitutions than in the national one. The state constitutions surround the right to assemble with expressly political language, such as the right to petition and advocacy for the “common good,” while the First Amendment’s guarantees are political, but not entirely political (it protects religion, and protected speech and press are often, but not always, political).

As Richard Boyd argues in “The Madisonian Paradox of Free Association,” America’s founders did not explicitly include free association because at least some of them were skeptical of it, worrying that certain associations would be conspiratorial or seditious. He summarizes the British Enlightenment tradition skeptical of associations, which influenced the founders (I describe this in the last few paragraphs of the UK section, on Hobbes, Locke, and Hume). James Madison, the primary author of the Bill of Rights, feared the influence of factions, which private associations furthered. As Boyd notes, Madison viewed association as a “second-order” right (page 258), whose existence is tolerable because institutions can mitigate its worst effects (page 247). The following passage from “Federalist No. 10” illustrates his attitude toward factions arising from free association:

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

As Boyd notes, there are several possible reasons why Madison may not have enumerated the right to associate. It is possible that he saw it as implied by other First-Amendment rights, such as free assembly. It also may have been seen as less important or vulnerable than other rights, and Madison may have seen it as the type of auxiliary right protected by the Ninth Amendment. Finally, the right’s exclusion may have been because the founders were too skeptical of it for its inclusion (258).

Since the 1950s and 60s, SCOTUS has, to an extent, ruled that the speech and assembly rights imply a right to associate, especially for politically expressive purposes. For example, it ruled in NAACP v. Alabama that the NAACP cannot be forced to submit a membership roster to a state government. In 2000, in Boy Scouts v. Dale, the court held that the Boy Scouts could exclude gay members (in violation of state non-dsicrimination laws) because not being able to do so would undermine their ability to express a viewpoint - expressive association.

In Roberts v. US Jaycees, an organization for young business leaders’ ban on female members was challenged because it violated state non-discrimination law. This case is notable because the court identified a new form of association: intimate association. The opinion of the court states that “certain intimate human relationships be secured against undue intrusion by the State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional scheme.” The opinion places this right under the general aims of the First Amendment. The court ruled against the organization, but in so doing, it established the idea that Americans have the right to free intimate and expressive association. Still, one could argue that in a state with true freedom to associate, any group of people would be able to enact whatever membership restrictions it wanted, regardless of whether or not it falls into the categories of “expressive” or “intimate.”

Although assembly is the First-Amendment freedom that most seems to correspond with association, SCOTUS has not derived free association this way. Rather, it uses a more nebulous combination of various First-Amendment rights. As the majority held in NAACP v. Button, “It is not necessary to subsume such activity under a narrow, literal conception of freedom of speech, petition or assembly, for there is no longer any doubt that the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect certain forms of orderly group activity.”

Article XVIII of North Carolina’s Constitution: “That the people have a right to assemble together, to consult for their common good, to instruct their Representatives, and to apply to the Legislature, for redress of grievances.” Section 21 of New Hampshire’s Constitution: “The citizens have a right in a peaceable manner to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those invested with the powers of government, for redress of grievances, or for other purposes, by petition, address, or remonstrance. No law abridging the freedom of speech shall be enacted.”

Section XVI of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights: “That the people have a right to assemble together, to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the legislature for redress of grievances, by address, petition, or remonstrance.

Is there another noteworthy written source from the past that mentions this right?

Pope Leo XIII forcefully argued for free association in Section 51 of Rerum novarum (1891), an extremely influential text in Catholic thought.

"Private societies, then, although they exist within the body politic, and are severally part of the commonwealth, cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into a "society" of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect natural rights, not to destroy them."

Is the identification of this right associated with a particular era in history, political regime, or political leader?

This right became an element of political discourse in the late Enlightenment, especially the American Revolution. In the mid and late 1800s, writers such as Mill and Leo XIII pushed the idea into the mainstream.

Legal Codification

Is this right protected in the Constitutions of most countries today?

Constitutions written after 1900 very often protect free association.

Is it contained in the US Constitution?

No.

Has it been interpreted as being implicit in the US Constitution?

Since the 1950s and 60s, SCOTUS has, to an extent, ruled that the speech and assembly rights imply a right to associate, especially for politically expressive purposes. For example, it ruled in NAACP v. Alabama that the NAACP cannot be forced to submit a membership roster to a state government. In 2000, in Boy Scouts v. Dale, the court held that the Boy Scouts could exclude gay members (in violation of state non-dsicrimination laws) because not being able to do so would undermine their ability to express a viewpoint - expressive association.

In Roberts v. US Jaycees, an organization for young business leaders’ ban on female members was challenged because it violated state non-discrimination law. This case is notable because the court identified a new form of association: intimate association. The opinion of the court states that “certain intimate human relationships be secured against undue intrusion by the State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional scheme.” The opinion places this right under the general aims of the First Amendment. The court ruled against the organization, but in so doing, it established the idea that Americans have the right to free intimate and expressive association. Still, one could argue that in a state with true freedom to associate, any group of people would be able to enact whatever membership restrictions it wanted, regardless of whether or not it falls into the categories of “expressive” or “intimate.”

Although assembly is the First-Amendment freedom that most seems to correspond with association, SCOTUS has not derived free association this way. Rather, it uses a more nebulous combination of various First-Amendment rights. As the majority held in NAACP v. Button, “It is not necessary to subsume such activity under a narrow, literal conception of freedom of speech, petition or assembly, for there is no longer any doubt that the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect certain forms of orderly group activity.”

Are there any exceptions in American law to this right?

Yes. As seen in Roberts v. US Jaycees, the right may be weighed against other state interests, especially when the association in question is neither expressive nor intimate. In that case, free association rights were curtailed to ensure adherence to non-discrimination laws.

Is this right enshrined in international and regional human rights treaties?

Yes. It is protected explicitly in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights.