On March 26, the Government passed the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, without prior Parliamentary scrutiny, which instituted sweeping restrictions on human rights and civil liberties, affording the police additional expansive powers to enforce restrictions on people’s freedom of movement, close businesses, places of worship and community centres, and disperse gatherings. Research by […]
On March 31, the Parliament approved a law allowing the federal Cabinet and the regional governors to enact unchecked restrictions on human rights in the course of “high alert preceding a situation of emergency”. This vague regime of “high alert” was used instead of the pre-existing “quarantine”, “situation of emergency”, and “state of emergency,” all […]
Between March 15 and 18, states of emergency limiting movement and prohibiting gatherings were declared across Australia. Social distancing guidelines require Australians to stay 1.5 m away from each other, and gatherings were strictly limited to 20 or fewer people. On April 26, the first reported anti-lockdown protest was carried out in the West Gippsland […]
On March 11, the Hungarian government declared a national “state of danger” to counter the Covid-19 pandemic, and since March 16, it suspended the right to assembly. A subsequent law has extended the government’s emergency powers indefinitely, and deferred elections during that time. The government response to the health crisis has been heavily criticized after […]
On March 12, the Colombian government decreed a health emergency due to COVID-19. The national mandatory quarantine went into effect on March 24 and was the strictest in Latin America up to that date. The measures were extended several times, the latest one being on June 30. From the start of the quarantine, workers in […]
In early March, the Irish government set in place measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 including closing schools and asking all that could to work from home. A lockdown was announced on March 27 that restricted movement and banned events with limited exceptions. On May 5 and then June 8, travel and gathering restrictions […]
On March 19, Argentina announced a public health emergency and set in place one of the strictest lockdowns in the region in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the lockdown has been relatively successful in containing the contagion. The Government also took a series of measures to ease the economic and social impact of […]