Moulding the Right to Health in the Time of the Pandemic

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has overturned the traditional terms of ‘normality’ in the daily lives of citizens around the world. After an inexplicable period of provocative inaction against repeated calls by the World Health Organisation (WHO), States were called to take drastic and unprecedented measures that resulted in suspending the most important fundamental rights, especially of individual and social nature. Cyprus could not, of course, be an exception to the imposition of protective and precautionary measures, having transformed from a purely social State into a social State of prevention. In the overall response to the pandemic, the report is positive. In the emerging legal environment, the anxious effort of the State mechanism to protect human life at all costs makes the principle of practical harmonisation of conflicting fundamental rights virtually inapplicable. In this environment, the citizen seems powerless and possibly vulnerable to the will of the executive power. The advent of the pandemic and the constant endangerment of human existence urge the national legislator to abandon the logic of harmonisation of fundamental rights and focus on their prioritisation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)67-97
Number of pages31
JournalCyprus Review
Volume33
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2021

Keywords

  • fundamental rights
  • pandemic
  • proportionality
  • public health
  • restriction of rights
  • State intervention
  • state of emergency
  • State of prevention

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