Judging, Fast and Slow. Constitutional Adjudication in Times of COVID-19

Lachmayer, Konrad

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3935820

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In such circumstances, parliaments and courts can be at the forefront of raising the human rights perspective in their interventions, by using their competences. 15 The challenge for the courts is timing; it takes some time for them to deliver a verdict, particularly in cases of individual complaints on human rights violations (Lachmayer 2021b). Nevertheless, their significance cannot be diminished, as was manifested in Slovakia by the Slovak Constitutional Court reviewing several dozen cases that had emerged due to the executive's handling of the pandemic (TASR 2021).…”

Section: The Case Of Slovakia: No Country For Weepersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Extreme Right as a Defender of Human Rights? Parliamentary Debates on COVID-19 Emergency Legislation in Slovakia

Steuer

2022

Laws

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the protection of public health became a political priority worldwide. Slovakia’s COVID-19 response was initially praised as a global success. However, major rights restrictions were introduced in spring 2020, with some of these endorsed by the parliament. This article uses = Rossiter’s and Schmitt’s concepts of the exception and Agamben’s distinction between life and survival to highlight the risks pertaining to the framing of the protection of public health as contradictory to human rights guarantees. It investigates how human rights were discussed by Slovak parliamentarians in relation to key legislation, that introduced a COVID-19 contact tracing app and allowed repeated prolongation of health emergencies by the executive with parliamentary approval. The findings indicate that democratic parliamentarians prioritized public health considerations framed in terms of security and effectiveness rather than rights, dissociating biological survival from political life. In contrast, extreme political actors became outspoken critics of emergencies, referring to human rights. As such, the deliberations represent a missed opportunity by democratic legislators to justify public health protection via a human rights lens and risk undermining democracy in Slovakia.

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Section: The Case Of Slovakia: No Country For Weepersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Extreme Right as a Defender of Human Rights? Parliamentary Debates on COVID-19 Emergency Legislation in Slovakia

Steuer

2022

Laws

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Judging, Fast and Slow. Constitutional Adjudication in Times of COVID-19

Cited by 1 publication

References 5 publications

The Extreme Right as a Defender of Human Rights? Parliamentary Debates on COVID-19 Emergency Legislation in Slovakia

The Extreme Right as a Defender of Human Rights? Parliamentary Debates on COVID-19 Emergency Legislation in Slovakia

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