Constitution of the Gabonese Republic, 2024, Articles 18 and 19 (Right to private life; inviolability of electronic and telematic communications)

Gabon adopted a new Constitution by referendum on 16 November 2024, promulgated in December 2024, inaugurating the country's 'Fifth Republic' after the August 2023 transition. Two provisions of its bill of rights are directly relevant to digital rights. Article 18 guarantees every person the right to respect for private life. Article 19 provides that the secrecy of correspondence and of postal, telegraphic, electronic, telephone and telematic communications is inviolable, language that expressly extends constitutional communications secrecy to electronic and 'telematic' (online/data-network) communications. That explicit reference to electronic and telematic communications is digital-specific and brings the provision within the inclusion bar for a dedicated Digital Rights entry, rather than a generic correspondence clause. These guarantees are read with the Constitution's protection of freedom of expression and communication. The constitutional layer sits above Gabon's statutory framework, including Law No. 027/2023 on cybersecurity and cybercrime and the 2026 presidential ordinance regulating social media and AI-generated content; the latter, in particular, creates content-removal, user-identification and platform-audit powers that engage the same expression and privacy interests Article 19 protects, so the constitutional guarantee and the statutory restrictions should be read together. As with comparable guarantees in the region, the practical effect of Article 19 depends on judicial enforcement and on the implementing legislation that defines permissible interferences. This entry records the constitutional protection of communications privacy in Gabon's 2024 Constitution; the operative cyber and platform-content rules are documented in the linked instruments. Drafting note: the 2024 Constitution is recent; article numbering and the authoritative published text should be verified by a reviewer against the Journal Officiel. Original language: French.

1. 1Article 18, right to respect for private life
2. 2Article 19, inviolable secrecy of correspondence and of postal, telegraphic, electronic, telephone and telematic communications (digital-specific)
3. 3Read with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression and communication
4. 4Inclusion-bar basis: explicit 'electronic' and 'telematic' communications language
5. 5Constitutional layer above Law 027/2023 (cyber) and the 2026 social-media / AI-content ordinance
6. 6Reviewer to verify article numbering against the official 2024 text