The exceptional predominance of general public well being could lead to the perversion of the rule of law, warns community legislation professor Vera Lúcia Raposo.
Last Might, two scientists from the College of Macau (UM) released an posting analysing the battle versus the COVID-19 pandemic in Macau and concluded that the metropolis had won that wrestle, in spite of some lawful uncertainties.
More than fifty percent a calendar year later, one of the authors, UM College of Legislation Affiliate Professor Vera Lúcia Raposo, acknowledges to Macau Enterprise magazine’s January edition that “my notion of how Macau is working with the pandemic at the second is not as beneficial as it was when I wrote the write-up.”
“I know that this is not the standard belief of the resident group, but I am not only a resident, I am also a law firm so I can’t are unsuccessful to evaluate the situation from a authorized point of view, namely from the viewpoint of constitutional legislation (since my doctorate targeted specifically on legal-political science, and some ‘lessons’ are by no means neglected),” she describes.
Professor Raposo underlines that “as any college student of constitutional regulation is aware, any and all constraints on essential legal rights must be justified, essential, satisfactory and proportional.”
But she does not see “that these demands are fulfilled in watch of the constraints of rights that have been imposed in the MSAR, even a lot more top to predicaments of discrimination relying on the resident standing or blue card and/or the person’s nationality.”
Ms Raposo is referring in particular “to liberty of motion, such as entry into the territory and the transfer to Hong Kong, and spouse and children reunion, which has encountered so several impediments (curiously, none of them invoked in link with the Grand Prix)”.
In accordance to this Macau-based mostly scholar, “it is not plenty of to invoke public health and fitness to restrict legal rights, it is vital to: i) Justify to what extent the typical training of the suitable would jeopardize general public wellbeing ii) Reveal that that restriction is definitely essential for the (public health) objective that is becoming sought and that the similar could not be accomplished in a significantly less restrictive way iii) Demonstrate that the restriction is in a position to provide the end in watch (that is, that it is actually reaching it) iv) Reveal that the expected positive aspects of the restriction outweigh the losses induced.”
“None of this is shown in authorized terms,” she states to Macau Enterprise.
“It is true that – as a lot it has been proclaimed – in a pandemic disaster individual rights and freedoms might have to appear to many compromises in view of the safety of general public overall health. However, this can not necessarily mean the unique predominance of general public well being, as if there was practically nothing else to explore. If this were being the situation, we would enter a scenario of perversion of the rule of regulation, which undoubtedly no one desires, nor does the Executive intend to create,” Vera Lúcia Raposo concludes.