We have studied theoretically the effects that the dissociation equilibrium of weak-acid fixed charge groups (e.g. carboxyl groups) exerts on the mean activity coefficients in charged membranes using a Donnan formalism. The model calculations indicate that unless carbon dioxide is excluded from the external aqueous solution, the pH of the membrane solution can be low enough to affect significantly the effective fixed charge concentration and the colon exclusion when the membrane fixed charge concentration is high compared with the external solution salt concentration. Although this problem was already pointed out in previous studies, the possibility that the pH and salt concentration effects appeared in the mean activity coefficient was not considered. We have analyzed quantitatively these effects here and shown that they will eventually be reflected in the effective mean activity coefficients obtained experimentally unless an appropriate theoretical model incorporating the dissociation equilibrium equation explicitly is used to analyze the experimental data.