MADLANGA J
protection of personal opinion being also one of the purposes of the freedom of
association guaranteed by Article 11”.53
Understandably, in the later case of Chassagnou54 the ECHR proceeded from the
premise that it was settled law that coercion to associate constituted an infringement of
the right to freedom of association.55 At issue in that case as well was the negative
right.56
Coming closer home, also of relevance is Tanganyika Law Society,57 a judgment
of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). That case concerned a
challenge to a 1992 amendment to the Tanzanian Constitution. The amendment
required that a candidate for presidential, parliamentary and local government elections
be a member of, and sponsored by, a political party. Having failed before the Tanzanian
domestic court system, Reverend Mtikila, the applicant in the second of the two
consolidated applications, challenged this amendment before the ACHPR. The basis
was that it violated rights of aspirant candidates protected under various international
human rights instruments. Of relevance here, the challenge was founded on Article 10
of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter).58 This Article
provides:
53
Sigurjónsson above n 46 at para 37.
54
Chassagnou v France [GC], nos. 25088/94; 28331/95 and 28443/95, ECHR 1999-III.
55
Id at para 103.
56
Farmers with relatively small holdings were forced by law to become members of municipal hunting
associations and to transfer hunting rights over their land to these hunting associations and their members. The
ECHR held that the right to associate included the right not to belong to an association and that the state could not
compel a person to join an association fundamentally at odds with that person’s convictions.
57
Tanganyika Law Society v United Republic of Tanzania; Mtikila v United Republic of Tanzania no 009/2011,
ACHPR 2011.
58
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 27 June 1981.
19
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