Broken Links
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Freedom of Assembly
Freedom of assembly allows the public to peacefully engage in collective expression, mediate differences of opinion, and bring attention to issues of public importance. Increasingly, however, governments worldwide often resort to restricting or violently repressing gatherings. Without freedom of assembly, society suffers—the public loses an important avenue to participate in open government, and governments diminish their own ability to respond to crises.
Open Gov Challenge: Civic Space
With OGP’s 2023-2028 Strategy, OGP members are set to work toward a number of aspirational thematic reforms through the Open Gov Challenge. This section of the Open Gov Guide addresses Civic Space.
Challenge prompt: Strengthen enabling environment and spaces for civil society and civic action.
Actions and reforms that fit within the scope of this challenge area are:
- Adopting, improving and/or implementing laws on civic space (especially non-profit laws) that are impartial and minimally restrictive on the operations of independent organizations.
- Programs to train and support national and/or subnational authorities in respecting and protecting the right to freely assemble in an unbiased and minimally restrictive manner.
- Reforms related to improving freedom of expression, such as protection of human rights defenders and other activists.
- Protection of freedom of association at both national and local level.
- Development of a civic space strategy or action plan, or promoting the use of Human Rights Impact Assessments, to comprehensively address issues restricting civic space.
Definitions for key terms such as freedom of assembly.
- Freedom of assembly: The right of peaceful assembly protects the non-violent gathering of people to express, promote, and defend common interests collectively, without fear of retribution. Gatherings can take place in public or private spaces, online and offline, or in some combination of these locations.
The Evidence
The evidence shows that freedom of assembly can magnify the positive effect of other open government reforms.
- Respecting civic freedoms can support healthy economic growth and improve human development outcomes, as research from V-DEM and The B Team shows.
- Non-violent resistance campaigns are associated with the sustained success of democratic transitions by creating democratic institutions of higher quality.
- Protecting the freedom of assembly creates avenues for inclusion in policy-making and implementation, particularly for marginalized or opposition groups. This is critical to ensure no one is left behind in policy-making or implementation.
- Assemblies can advance other open government reforms by sustaining public focus on issues, which can encourage people to vote in higher numbers and provide momentum for litigation.
The recommendations below represent reforms that national and local governments, representatives of civil society organizations, and others can consider for their action plans and the Open Gov Challenge. The reforms are categorized according to OGP’s principal values: transparency, civic participation, and public accountability. Reforms should be adapted to fit the domestic context, and involve and coordinate with other levels and branches of government.
Reforms across policy areas are also tagged by the estimated degree of difficulty in implementation. Though progress is often not linear, the recommendations have been categorized using these labels to give the reader a sense of how different reforms can work together to raise the ambition of open government approaches.
Recommended Reforms Key
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Transparency: Transparency empowers citizens to exercise their rights, hold the government accountable, and participate in decision-making processes. Examples of relevant activities include the proactive or reactive publication of government-held information, legal or institutional frameworks to strengthen the right to access information, and disclosing information using open data standards.
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Civic Participation: When people are engaged, governments and public institutions are more responsive, innovative, and effective. Examples of relevant initiatives include new or improved processes and mechanisms for the public to contribute to decisions, participatory mechanisms to involve underrepresented groups in policy making, and a legal environment that guarantees civil and political rights.
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Public Accountability: Public accountability occurs when public institutions must justify their actions, act upon requirements and criticisms, and take responsibility for failure to perform according to laws or commitments. Importantly, public accountability means that members of the public can also access and trigger accountability mechanisms. Examples of relevant activities include citizen audits of performance, new or improved mechanisms or institutions that respond to citizen-initiated appeals processes, and improved access to justice.
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Inclusion: Inclusion is fundamental to achieving more equitable, representative, and accountable policies that truly serve all people. This includes increasing the voice, agency, and influence of historically discriminated or underrepresented groups. Depending on the context, traditionally underrepresented groups may experience discrimination based on gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, age, geography, differing ability, legal, or socioeconomic status.
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Foundational: This tag is used for reforms that are the essential building blocks of a policy area. “Foundational” does not mean low ambition or low impact. These recommendations often establish basic legal frameworks and institutional structures.
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Intermediate: This tag is used for reforms that are complex and often involve coordination and outreach between branches, institutions, and levels of government, with the public or between countries.
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Advanced: This tag is used for reforms that close important loopholes to make existing work more effective and impactful. Specifically, “Advanced” reforms are particularly ambitious, innovative or close important loopholes to make existing work more effective, impactful or sustainable. They are often applied in mature environments where they seek to institutionalize a good practice that has already shown results.
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Executive: The executive branch of government is responsible for designing, implementing, and enforcing laws, policies, and initiatives. It is typically led by the head of state or government, such as a president or prime minister, along with their appointed cabinet members. The executive branch’s functions also include overseeing the day-to-day operations of the government, managing foreign affairs, and directing the country’s armed forces. In democratic systems, the executive branch is accountable to the legislature and the electorate, with its powers and limitations outlined in the constitution or legal framework of the respective country.
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Legislative: The legislative branch of government is responsible for making laws and regulations and overseeing the functioning of the government. It typically consists of a body of elected representatives, such as a parliament, congress, or assembly, which is tasked with proposing, debating, amending, and ultimately passing legislation. The legislative branch plays a crucial role in representing the interests of the people, as its members are elected to office by the public. In addition to law-making, this branch often holds the power to levy taxes, allocate funds, and conduct certain investigations into matters of public concern. The structure and powers of the legislative branch are usually outlined in a country’s constitution or legal framework, and it serves as a check on the executive and judicial branches to ensure a system of checks and balances within a state.
Examples of Reforms from OGP and Beyond
The following examples are commitments previously made within or beyond OGP that demonstrate elements of the recommendations made above. To date, only a handful of OGP countries have commitments related to freedom of assembly.
OGP Reforms
INDONESIA Restorative Justice Methods to Protect Basic Rights: Committed to conducting and using research to design roadmaps on restorative justice related to the right to information, the right to expression, and the right to assemble.
NIGERIA Co-creation and Dialogue on Peaceful Protests: Committed to co-creating a guide on peaceful protests with civil society and the police, and organizing citizen-police dialogues with independent bodies like the National Human Rights Commission.
UKRAINE Draft Law Created through Cross-Ministerial Collaboration: Developed a draft law on organizing peaceful assemblies, with various ministries (such as the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Interior, and Cabinet of Ministers) actively engaged in the process.
Beyond OGP Action Plans
CHILE Accountability for Police Violence during Protests: Opened over a thousand investigations, disciplined hundreds of officers, and fired at least 14 following calls for accountability from rights’ groups that documented police violence against protestors.
The Role of Local Governments
Local governments can provide a critical bulwark to attacks on the freedom of assembly, especially in countries where national laws are either too vague (applied broadly to target all assemblies) or too specific (making the process of hosting a demonstration too onerous or risky). As the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) describes, local governments have been particularly active in enacting new safeguards to protect this right.
For example, following a campaign by Colombian CSOs, in 2019 “the cities of Barranquilla and Cali established new protection protocols and guarantees for protests, though local authorities have not fully implemented these instruments since their adoption.” This trend is also visible in the United States, where civil society pushed for municipal and state policy makers to introduce new reforms to safeguard the freedom of assembly. According to ICNL’s tracker, reforms included “new limits on the use of tear gas and other less lethal weapons against protesters, bans on the deployment of facial recognition technology to surveil protesters, and requirements that officers display identifying information when they police protests, to enhance their accountability.”
Who is working on this topic?
I
Indonesia
M
Mongolia
Montenegro
N
Nigeria
U
Ukraine
Uruguay
This list reflects members with commitments in the “Freedom of Assembly” policy area of the Data Dashboard.
The following organizations have recently worked on this issue in the context of OGP at the national or international level. They may have additional insights on the topic. Please note that this list is not exhaustive. If you are interested in national-level initiatives, please contact research@opengovpartnership.org.
The OGP 2023-2028 Strategy sets out the Open Gov Challenge and aims to provide clear benchmarks for performance through reliable data.
While benchmarks for individual countries and Open Gov Guide recommendations are not yet integrated, for this chapter, interested individuals may rely on the following data sets:
- The CIVICUS Monitor tracks data related to civic space in 196 countries to determine whether a country is closed, repressed, obstructed, narrowed, or open.
- The Freedom House Freedom in the World report analyzes the state of political and civil rights in 195 countries and 15 territories.
- International IDEA‘s Democracy Tracker provides monthly updates to global events with the potential to impact the state of democracy and human rights in 173 countries. This tracker is part of the organization’s Global State of Democracy Initiative.
- The V-DEM Dataset provides a comprehensive analysis of democracy ratings, including indicators on civic space.
- The World Justice Project‘s Rule of Law Index analyzes different dimensions of governance in 140 countries and jurisdictions, including several related to civic space.
- OGP commitments on this topic can be found on the Data Dashboard.
Guidance & Standards
While the list below is not exhaustive, it aims to provide a range of recommendations, standards, and analysis to guide reform in this policy area.
- An overview of recommendations and guidance related to this topic can be found in the OGP Support Unit‘s Global Report.
- The UN Human Rights Committee provides additional guidance to States parties of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in General Comment 37, which includes guidance on the scope of peaceful assemblies and the duties and powers of law enforcement in policing assemblies.
- The UN Development Programme and the ICNL collaborated on a toolkit outlining the legal frameworks for civic space. The toolkit includes guidance on protecting the rights to free expression, free assembly, and free association.
- ICNL offers guidance on trends and strategies to resist government crackdowns on the freedom of assembly, including positive examples of reform and resistance.
- The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe created a set of guidelines on peaceful assembly, which focuses on how legislators and other practitioners can draft and implement laws to protect the freedom of assembly.
- The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has issued regional guidelines on the freedom of association and the freedom of assembly.
- The European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) provides guidance on protests and assemblies in general, as well as analysis of how UN standards can be used to safeguard the freedom of assembly. ECNL also updated its handbook on how to use EU law to protect the rights of assembly, association, and expression in 2023.
- The International Finance Corporation published a handbook specifically focused on the use of security forces, which includes guidance on the protection of the freedom of assembly.
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