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The Right of Association in Ghana and Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Claude E. Welch Jr.
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Extract

Among the rights promised to individuals and groups, the ‘right of association’ frequently appears. It is enshrined in national constitutions, in international declarations and conventions, and in standard references to the liberties and privileges that citizens enjoy. Yet, as this article will illustrate, restrictions on this right have been justified in the name of higher objectives. The right of association, it would appear, is a conditional or second-order right, subordinated on occasion to more pressing rights. The strains of recent independence, regionalism, and labour unrest have brought about limits to the creation of association, whether political or non-political in nature.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 639 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 640 note 1 Cited in Brownlie, Ian (ed.), Basic Documents on Human Rights (Oxford, 1971), p. 21.Google Scholar

page 640 note 2 Ibid. p. 60.

page 640 note 3 Ibid. p. 8.

page 640 note 4 Cf. Duverger, Maurice, The Idea of Politics: the uses of power in society (Indianapolis, 1966), p. 51:Google Scholar ‘there are the privileged and the oppressed, and the inequality between them fosters a deep-rooted antagonism which is the essential basis of political strife. The oppressed struggle to maintain their condition, and the privileged fight to maintain their privileges. The main stake in the battle is power, since holding power confers vital advantages.’ In the terms preferred by Aristotle, , ‘The cause of sedition is always to be found in inequality’, The Politics, translated and edited by Barker, Ernest (Oxford, 1952), p. 205.Google Scholar Or, as tersely expressed by Madison, James, ‘The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property’, The Federalist (New York, n.d.), p. 56.Google Scholar

page 641 note 1 Brownlie, op. cit. p. 27.

page 641 note 2 Ibid. p. 110.

page 642 note 1 Ibid. p. 202.

page 642 note 2 Ibid. p. 220.

page 642 note 3 Ibid. pp. 280–1.

page 642 note 4 Ibid. p. 393.

page 642 note 5 Ibid. p. 394.

page 643 note 1 Ibid. p. 407.

page 643 note 2 Apter, David E., Ghana in Transition (Princeton, 1972 edn.), especially pp. 175–98 and 273–90.Google Scholar

page 644 note 1 This point is well documented in Kraus, Jon, ‘The Ghana National Assembly and MPs in the Political Economy of Power and Exchange Relationships’, Conference on Legislatures in Contemporary Societies, Albany, 01 1975, pp. 5–10.Google Scholar

page 644 note 2 Stultz, Newell, ‘Parliaments in Former British Black Africa’, in Journal of Developing Areas (Macomb, Ill.), II, 4, 1968, pp. 488–9.Google Scholar

page 644 note 3 General studies include Hodgkin, Thomas, African Political Parties (Harmondsworth, 1961),Google Scholar and Zolberg, Aristide, Creating Political Order: the party-states of West Africa (Chicago, 1966).Google Scholar The best of many studies of Ghana is Austin, Dennis, Politics in Ghana, 1946–1960 (London, 1964);Google Scholar for Tanzania see, inter alia, Bates, Margaret, ‘Tanganyika’, in Carter, Gwendolen M. (ed.), African One-Party States (Ithaca, 1962), pp. 395–477,Google ScholarBienen, Henry, Tanzania: party transformation and economic development (Princeton, 1970 edn.),Google Scholar and Hopkins, Raymond F., Political Roles in a New State: Tanzania's first decade (New Haven, 1971).Google Scholar

page 644 note 4 Coleman, James S. and Rosberg, Carl G. Jr, Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley, 1964), pp. 661–71.Google Scholar

page 645 note 1 Kjekshus, Helge, ‘Parliament in a One-Party State–the Bunge of Tanzania, 1965–70’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XII, 1, 03 1974, p. 37.Google Scholar

page 645 note 2 See Price, Robert M., Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana (Berkeley, 1975)Google Scholar for details concerning how civil servants were expected to conform to kinship rôles; and also Achebe, Chinua, A Man of the People (Garden City, 1967).Google Scholar

page 645 note 3 To avoid confusion in terminology, I use the term Tanzania to refer to the United Republic of Tanzania, constituted by Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964; T.A.N.U. is confined to the mainland, leaving mobilisation on the island to the Afro-Shirazi Party. These two political organisations merged in 1977 to form Chama Cha Mapinduzi.

page 645 note 4 Speech at the opening of the newly-elected National Assembly, 12 October 1965, reprinted in Nyerere, Julius K., Freedom and Socialism: a selection from writings and speeches, 1965–1967 (Dar es Salaam, 1968), p. 89.Google Scholar

page 646 note 1 The rapid development of the N.L.M. so concerned the British Government that, prior to granting independence, a special constitutional adviser was sent to examine the advisability of a federal structure for the Gold Coast; the upshot was a new national election (with results practically identical to those of 1954), and a constitution in which Regional Assemblies were entrenched. However, since the entrenchment clause itself was not entrenched (!), a constitutional amendment by the C.P.P. quickly led to the eradication of the provision for Regional Assemblies.

page 647 note 1 The sweeping nature of the Act can most readily be illustrated by quoting its objects: ‘To prevent organizations based on tribal, racial, religious, or local affiliations attempting to secure the return of members to Parliament or to other bodies upon a tribal, racial, or religious basis.’

page 647 note 2 Ghana, Parliamentary Debates, Official Report, First Series, Vol. 8, 13th 11–19th 12 1957 (Accra, 1958), column 519.Google Scholar

page 647 note 3 Ibid. column 523.

page 648 note 1 Ibid. columns 529–30.

page 648 note 2 Austin, op. cit. p. 386.

page 648 note 3 By referendum, 29 June 1960, Ghana adopted a Republican Constitution, and Nkrumah became the first President.

page 649 note 1 Austin, op. cit. p. 414.

page 649 note 2 Cited by Bates, loc. cit. p. 421.

page 650 note 1 See Hopkins, op. cit. and Kjekshus, loc. cit. Also McAuslan, J. P. W. B. and Ghai, Yash P., ‘Constitutional Innovation and Political Stability in Tanzania: a preliminary assessment’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, IV, 4, 12 1966, pp. 479–515;CrossRefGoogle ScholarTordoff, William R., Government and Politics in Tanzania (Nairobi, 1967);Google Scholar and Velzen, H. U. E. Thoden van and Sterkenburg, J. H., ‘Stirrings in the Tanzanian National Assembly’, in Kroniek van Afrika (Leiden), IV, 1968, pp. 298–305,Google Scholar reprinted in Cliffe, Lionel and Saul, John S. (eds.), Socialism in Tanzania: an interdisciplinary reader, Vol. 1, Politics (Nairobi, 1972), pp. 248–53.Google Scholar

page 651 note 1 Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago, 1965), especially pp. 361–90.Google Scholar

page 651 note 2 Quoted in Austin, op. cit. p. 403.

page 652 note 1 For details, see Drake, St. Clair and Lacy, Leslie Alexander, ‘Government Versus the Unions: the Sekondi-Takoradi strike, 1961’, in Carter, Gwendolen M. (ed.), Politics in Afrira (New York, 1966), pp. 119–66.Google Scholar

page 652 note 2 M. A. Bienefeld, ‘Labour in Tanzania’, in Cliffe and Saul (eds.), op. cit. p. 343.

page 652 note 3 Speech to the biennial conference of N.U.T.A., 27 July 1967, in Nyerere, op. cit. p. 313.

page 653 note 1 Geertz, Clifford, ‘The Integrative Revolution: primordial sentiments and civic politics in the new states’, in Geertz, (ed.), Old Societies and New States: the quest for modernity in Asia and Africa (New York, 1963), pp. 105–57.Google Scholar

page 653 note 2 Hume, David, Essays, Moral and Political (1741–1742; Oxford edn. 1963), p. 55.Google Scholar

page 653 note 3 Nkrumah, Kwame, Ghana: the autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (Edinburgh, 1957), p. x.Google Scholar He continues, ‘Without discipline true freedom cannot exist.’ In the 1959 paperback edition of this book, Nkrumah modified his wording by referring to ‘measures of an emergency kind’.

page 653 note 4 Madison, loc. cit. pp. 54–5.

page 654 note 1 Ibid. p. 55.

page 655 note 1 International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights in a One-Party State (London, 1978), p. 110.Google Scholar Seminar members also argued that no right of association need be prohibited in a one-party democratic state save that ‘to form political associations other than the ruling party’; ibid. p. 118. The problem remains to define clearly what is ‘political’ and what is ‘non-political’.

page 655 note 2 Ibid. p. 128.

page 655 note 3 Ibid.