Cite as: 518 U. S. 343 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
tion: freedom to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, e. g., O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 348 (1987); Cruz, 405 U. S., at 321, freedom to communicate with the outside world, e. g., Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 411-412 (1989), and the freedom to petition their government for a redress of grievances, e. g., Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483, 485 (1969). While the exercise of these freedoms may of course be regulated and constrained by their custodians, they may not be obliterated either actively or passively. Indeed, our cases make it clear that the States must take certain affirmative steps to protect some of the essential aspects of liberty that might not otherwise survive in the controlled prison environment.
The "well-established" right of access to the courts, ante, at 350, is one of these aspects of liberty that States must affirmatively protect. Where States provide for appellate review of criminal convictions, for example, they have an affirmative duty to make transcripts available to indigent prisoners free of charge. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 19-20 (1956) (requiring States to waive transcript fees for indigent inmates); see also Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252, 257- 258 (1959) (requiring States to waive filing fees for indigent prisoners). It also protects an inmate's right to file complaints, whether meritorious or not, see Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546 (1941) (affirming right to file habeas petitions even if prison officials deem them meritless, in case in which petition at issue was meritless), and an inmate's right to have access to fellow inmates who are able to assist an inmate in preparing, "with reasonable adequacy," such complaints. Johnson, 393 U. S., at 489; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 580 (1974).1 And for almost two decades, it has explicitly
1 See also California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508, 510 (1972) ("The right of access to the courts is indeed but one aspect of the right of petition. See Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483, 485; Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546, 549"); Bill Johnson's Restaurants,
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