Fourth Draft
Freedom of Assembly and Association
Catgeory: Civil Rights
Strength:
Description: The World Assembly,
Believing that the freedom for people to assemble and associate in pursuit of mutual interests (e.g. charity, culture, education, politics, religion, socialising), is a fundamental right which should not be restricted further than public safety truly requires, and therefore should be protected under national and international law;
Hereby states that Freedom is a compelling practical purpose for protecting these rights and, subject to any limits set by earlier resolutions that are still in force, requires member nations to uphold the following rights for all legally competent people under their jurisdiction except where an activity is for economic purposes and other GA legislation requires or at least does not forbid its further regulation:
1.) People have the right to gather together voluntarily for whatever purposes they want (charitable, cultural, educational, political, religious, social, or otherwise), without risk of arrest or of law-suits (other than for non-performance of contractual duties) for doing so, and threats or force may not be used to prevent this, unless
a/ The assembly is to incite or cause direct physical harm to other people, otherwise-illegal harm to non-sapient animals, damage to other people’s property, or breach of WA laws against environmental damage.
b/ The assembly is already causing or inciting such harm or damage;
c/ This would pose a significant threat of physical harm (other than by government action) to attendees;
d/ This would involve trespass on private property, or would interfere unreasonably with already-existing legal activities at that site;
e/ The people are required as part of current military service, or because of charges for criminal offences, to be elsewhere or otherwise engaged at that time;
f/ Attendance would breach a medical quarantine, or would require entry into a foreign nation that either forbids this itself or is currently off-limit for non-official travel by people of this nationality;
g/ The event is a private one with invitations required, or is run by an organisation that limits attendance in some way;
2.) People have the right to form organisations to promote any purpose for which they could legally assemble: Organisations created by or voluntarily accepting sponsorship from a government or other outside body can required to accept some control by that body, subject to any limits agreed when the connection began, but an organisation otherwise has the rights not only to promote its causes and to hold assemblies, subject to the limits set in Article One, but also
a/ To remain outside government service;
b/To determine its own organisational structure;
c/ To set its own limits on attendance at meetings, membership, and holding its official positions, as long as those rules do not require applicants to perform acts that would be criminal offences if done otherwise.
3.) Governments are not allowed to set fees, travel limits, or other barriers, aimed specifically at hindering assemblies or organisations legal under the preceding articles.
4.) People have the rights to not attend assemblies and to not join organisations, unless
a/ The person is required to do this as part of legally mandated education, and it will neither require them to undergo political or religious indoctrination nor either compel or forbid them to take part in any political or religious activity;
b/ The person is a convicted criminal, this activity is required under their sentence, and it will neither require them to undergo political or religious indoctrination nor either compel or forbid them to take part in any political or religious activity;
c/ The person is required to do this as part of legally mandated military service, and this will neither require them to undergo political or religious indoctrination nor either compel or forbid them to take part in any political or religious activity (except that nations can bar serving military personnel from political office);
d/ The person took their current job, and agreed to this activity then or later as a condition of employment, by free and informed choice.
5.) No organisation can hold a monopoly in law over any general field of activity (e.g. as the only allowed political party [overall or for one doctrine], religion, sect, campaign for a cause, youth movement, league for a sport), except that this neither forbids constitutional sole authority for national or local government nor requires governments to accept organisations into their service.
6.) For people who are not legally competent, relevant choices about these activities shall be made by whoever stands in loco parentis for them, except as governments legislate to let minors who have reached least three-quarters the relevant age of majority make their own choices in political or religious matters.
The main functional differences from the previous draft are to clarify that the rule against organisations holding monopolies does not allow any organisations which are competing in some way with government agencies to demand recognition as government agencies, to give non-governmental organisations explicit protection against non-consensual conversion into government agencies, and an expansion of the former Article Two (which is now moved to become Article Three) so that it specifically protects organisations as well as assemblies. Most of the other changes are just tinkering to get the length back down after those three additions.
Its length now comes to around 4’870 characters, excluding any added because NS counts something differently from Word, so it should be okay in that respect.
This should now be just within the maximum length allowed. (Word says around 4945 characters, including spaces, although that would include the formatting code on “in loco parentis” which I think NS doesn’t count: NS does, however, tend to count something [probably line-breaks] as taking more characters per case than Word does…)
Yes, I still need to add the ‘list code’, if I’m going to do so: That can wait until the actual wording is settled.
I still need to check one cause in an existing resolution, and think about that for a bit, before finalising Article Six here.
Changes from second draft
Section of “Hereby” clause about economic activities rewritten for [hopefully] greater clarity.
Each case of “Article [Number as word]” replaced by “[Number as figure].)”
Article Two’s ban on government use of threat or force to prevent assemblies that are legal under Article One moved to the first section of Article One, to close a potential loophole involving ‘1.c’.
“otherwise–illegal harm to non-sapient animals” added to Article One’s list of potentially-forbidden activities.
Article Five now says “hold a monopoly in law” rather than “legally hold a monopoly”, and its list of examples has been expanded slightly to show its range more effectively.
Age threshold in Article Six altered, from two-thirds to three-quarters of the local age of majority.
Various changes in wording to shorten the text slightly, to help with keeping it within the maximum length allowed. Various changes in wording to try improving clarification of some points, especially where the effects of shortened text had to be allowed for.
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Changes from first draft
Alterations that were already made provisionally to the first draft (with strike-through or red text).
The GA’s right to allow or require further regulation of assemblies & organisations that are for economic purposes is now stated clearly before all the list of rights to be upheld, rather than just at one point within that list.
Clauses ‘1.c’ & ‘1.d’ have been swapped in position.
Various changes in wording to shorten the text slightly, to get it back within the maximum length allowed. (Word’s counter says that it meets that limit, although only just, but experience suggest that Word’s counter counts something [probably line breaks] differently from NS’s own internal counter so that I’ll probably still need to reduce it by another 20-to-60 characters…)
Various changes in wording to try improving clarification of some points, especially where the effects of shortened text had to be allowed for.
“Article Five would not ban either theocratic or single-party systems of government, or require their rulers to share power, it would simply require their rulers to tolerate the existence of organised dissent within their nations. We recognise that this might still be considered a step too far by some governments represented here, and if continuing to include this clause seems likely to prevent passage of the resolution then we will — reluctantly — remove it.”
Artorrios o SouthWoods,
ChairBear, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.
Hwa Sue,
Legal Attaché,
Bears Armed Mission to the World Assembly
(and anthropomorphic male Giant Panda).