Il fattore religioso nelle Costituzioni del XXI secolo degli Stati dell’Africa sub-sahariana

[Autom. eng. transl.] Many countries have adopted new Constitutions in recent years. However, the region most affected is sub-Saharan Africa: of 50 states, 16 have adopted a new charter in the last twelve years. Despite the lack of interest shown by scholars in the African Constitutions (for a long time jurists have been or have been excluded from the scientific debate on the ever important role of religion in Africa, leaving it almost exclusively in the hands of theologians and philosophers), their examination has a special interest, and especially the norms in religious matters. The guarantee of the right to religious freedom is one of the most reliable indicators for assessing the degree of democracy of a State. This belongs to the list of fundamental freedoms of every individual, whose protection must be inscribed among the fundamental principles of every legal system and guaranteed by every political regime that wants to call itself democratic. It is easy to see that where religious freedom is violated, so are other fundamental rights: serious limitations on the right to gather and associate for religious purposes, to manifest one's faith, to practice worship, to practice proselytizing and so away, they are almost always accompanied by heavy restrictions on the exercise of the more general freedom of assembly, association and manifestation of thought by subjects who express visions of the world other than the official one or who do not belong to the majority of the population (identified on a non only religious, but also ethnic, cultural, linguistic, tribal, political, ideological ...). In this perspective, this contribution makes a double check: the inclusion or not in the most recent Constitutions of the sub-Saharan countries of a series of norms in religious matters that are part of the juridical patrimony of contemporary democracies; and the degree of effective application of these provisions.