The Constitutional Framework and Legislative Regulation of the Right to Freedom of Association in Egypt after 2013

Abstract The right to freedom of association is one of the fundamental human rights guaranteed by leading regional and international treaties and comparative constitutional systems. Despite its centrality, the available scholarly work on the framework of this right in the Egyptian constitutional system is extremely limited and often reduced to the situation of unions and syndicates in Egyptian Law. This article explores the constitutional framework for this right both in the constitutional text and the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court jurisprudence, and then investigates the legal framework responding to this constitutional regulation in practice. Despite the idealistic constitutional regulation of the right, the indicators of rfa in the period of the current constitutional system (2013–2023) are remarkably low, which can be explained by the restrictive laws in place that address the means of exercising this right, and the arbitrary policies against associations in Egypt.