Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda of 2003 (revised in 2015), Article 23 (Privacy and confidentiality of correspondence and communication)

Article 23 of the Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda of 2003 (revised in 2015) protects privacy and, relevantly for digital rights, contains a specific guarantee of the confidentiality of communications. It provides that the privacy of a person, their family, home or correspondence shall not be subjected to interference in a manner inconsistent with the law, that a person's honour and dignity shall be respected, and, in the clause most directly relevant here, that the confidentiality of correspondence and communication shall not be waived except in circumstances and in accordance with procedures determined by law. The 2003 Constitution was adopted by referendum in 2003 and substantially revised by referendum in 2015. This provision is included in the Digital Rights library on the basis of the inclusion test's second limb: it contains specific language addressing the confidentiality of communications, distinct from a bare or generic privacy or free-expression clause. The inclusion is transparently noted as resting principally on that textual specificity, rather than on a prominent, identifiable digital-context constitutional judgment of the kind available for South Africa (AmaBhungane) or Kenya (CORD; the Device Management System litigation). Rwanda's constitutional jurisprudence on communications privacy in the online context is comparatively undeveloped, and much of the surveillance debate has played out in civil-society and international human-rights analysis rather than domestic case law; reviewers may wish to weigh that distinction. The communications-confidentiality clause is the constitutional standard against which Rwanda's surveillance and data instruments fall to be assessed, in particular Law N° 60/2013 regulating the interception of communications, whose prosecutor-led authorisation model and provider interception-capability obligations engage the confidentiality guarantee, and Law N° 058/2021 on the protection of personal data and privacy. The clause is expressly subject to limitation by law (‘in accordance with procedures determined by law’), and it must be read alongside Article 38, which recognises freedom of press, expression and access to information but subjects those freedoms to enumerated limits including public order, good morals, protection of the youth and children, and the honour, dignity and privacy of others. Article 23 therefore supplies the privacy pillar of Rwanda’s constitutional digital-rights framework, even though its practical force in constraining communications surveillance remains contested.

1. 1Article 23 protects the privacy of a person, their family, home and correspondence against interference inconsistent with the law, and protects honour and dignity.
2. 2It contains a specific clause providing that the confidentiality of correspondence and communication shall not be waived except in circumstances and in accordance with procedures determined by law.
3. 3This communications-confidentiality clause is the constitutional basis for limits on interception, monitoring and surveillance, and for the protection of personal data.
4. 4Read with Article 38 (freedom of press, expression and access to information, subject to enumerated limits), it frames Rwanda's constitutional treatment of digital rights.
5. 5Operates as the apex norm above Law N° 60/2013 on interception of communications and Law N° 058/2021 on protection of personal data and privacy.