States of Emergency

Emergency Law Responses to Covid-19 and the Impact on Peace and Transition Processes

“…The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020. This global health crisis demanded a quick, decisive and efficient response by governments to protect lives, curb the spread of the virus and prevent public health systems from being overwhelmed (Ginsburg and Versteeg 2020;Grogan 2020). Governments in many countries have triggered emergency legal frameworks to disable some ordinary (democratic) procedures and set aside standard political and legal accountability mechanisms as part of their Covid-19 response.…”

“…In the context of the pandemic, states of emergency differ in terms of the procedures that need to be followed and the substance of both what constitutes an emergency and the scope of authorized government action, but each authorizes a range of flexible powers and corresponding measures to address the pandemic. Grogan (2020) identifies four common elements of constitutional provisions on a state of emergency: (1) conditions for its declaration; (2) a delegation of power; (3) limitations on its use; and (4) provisions for legislative or judicial oversight. For instance, the constitution might require parliament to authorize a state of emergency either before it can be declared or within a specified period of time following the declaration.…”

Challenging absolute executive powers in times of corona: re-examining constitutional courts and the collective right to public contestation as instruments of institutional control

“…Therefore, being the custodian of constitutional values and the final bulwark against the "majority's tyranny" (de Tocqueville, 1835) and the State's abuse of power, the Courts must rise to the occasion to uphold fundamental rights, democratic norms and constitutional enforcement mechanisms to ensure that constitutional rights are not trampled upon (Mzikamanda, 2020). In fact, constitutional safeguards prove key to place limits on possible abuse by emergency powers: as the Mexican context illustrates, respective judicial and legislative oversight may not be able to override by the executive branch (Grogan, 2020). Disquietingly, in recent times, the Courts are often seen as reneging from checking executive powers whenever questions of fundamental rights and liberties are arbitrarily interfered with (TOM GINSBURG AND AZIZ Z. HUQ, 2019).…”

“…The very principle of legality demands discretionary powers to find detailed expression and to be judicially reviewed, respectively (Lazarus, 2020a). In some cases, the executive has demonstrably managed to limit access to justice by "freezing courts, limiting access to 'extremely urgent' or critical cases or giving sole access to violations of coronavirus measures" (Grogan, 2020). In that sense, emergency decrees may limit court action to cases of special emergency as becoming apparent in the case of Romania (Selejan-Gutan, 2020), Russia (Kalinichenko and Moskovkina, 2020) or Italy (Kypraios, 2020).…”

On the Overlap of Systemic Events: Covid-19, Climate, and Journalism

“…Will human and civil rights “recover” from states of emergency ( Gozdecka, 2020 )? How will constitutional order hold up (e.g., Grogan, 2020 )? How might the pandemic exacerbate social inequality (e.g., Reich, 2020 )?…”