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Pandemic and the Rule of Law

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Rule of Law and the Challenges Posed by the Pandemic (WLC 2021)

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Abstract

This paper addresses the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic posed for the operation of the legal order by reference to the jurisprudence of the Slovenian Constitutional Court on the pandemic and the measures adopted to combat it. While the focus is on the Slovenian experience, the context of the contribution will be familiar to all: the pandemic necessitated drastic measures restricting fundamental rights, which in turn raised a number of constitutional challenges in determining the proper conditions and limits of these measures. Some of these challenges concerned the procedural aspects, such as the standing requirements to be able to bring an action before the Constitutional Court contesting the constitutionality of particular measures. Others related to the substantive aspects, notably the application of—and possible adjustments to—the principle of proportionality in assessing whether a particular limitation of fundamental rights was, in fact, lawful.

This is a slightly expanded and updated version of the talk given at the World Law Congress in Barranquilla, Colombia in December 2021.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The so-called Recovered-Vaccinated-Tested requirement imposed for various activities.

  2. 2.

    For more detailed statistic information, see the 2022 Annual Report of the Constitutional Court, the English versions available at https://us-rs.si/publications/?lang=en.

  3. 3.

    The remaining few cases would comprise the other types of proceedings envisaged by the Constitutional Court Act (jurisdictional disputes, impeachment proceedings, reviews of the acts and activities of political parties, electoral disputes and reviews of treaties for conformity with the Constitution) or other legislation (such as reviewing the decision of the National Assembly that a particular law is to be excluded from the possibility of calling a legislative referendum under Article 90(2) of the Constitution in accordance with the provisions of the Referendum and Popular Initiative Act).

  4. 4.

    And there were five cases corresponding to other types of proceedings.

  5. 5.

    And eight applications concerning other types of proceedings (and this number also does not include those submissions received at the Court that could not be classified as a proper application).

  6. 6.

    Decision No. U-I-192/16 of 7 February 2018 (Official Gazette RS No. 15/2018 and OdlUS XXIII, 2), ECLI:SI:USRS:2018:U.I.192.16, para. 19.

  7. 7.

    Decision No. U-I-194/17 of 15 November 2018 (Official Gazette RS No. 1/2019 and OdlUS XXIII, 14), ECLI:SI:USRS:2018:U.I.194.17, para. 13.

  8. 8.

    Decision No. U-I-107/15 of 7 February 2019, ECLI:SI:USRS:2019:U.I.107.15, para. 17.

  9. 9.

    See e.g. the first Order No. U-I-83/20 of 16 April 2020 (Official Gazette RS No. 58/2020), ECLI:SI:USRS:2020:U.I.83.20, para. 18, admitting the petition for review on the merits.

  10. 10.

    The Amending Budget of the Republic of Slovenia for the Year 2019 (AB2019) and the Implementation of the Republic of Slovenia Budget for 2018 and 2019 Act (IRSB1819).

  11. 11.

    See Decision No. U-I-129/19 of 1 July 2020 (Official Gazette RS No. 108/2020 and OdlUS XXV, 17), ECLI:SI:USRS:2020:U.I.129.19, para. 43.

  12. 12.

    See also Decision No. U-I-83/20 of 27 August 2020 (Official Gazette RS No. 128/2020 and OdlUS XXV, 18), ECLI:SI:USRS:2020:U.I.83.20, para. 27.

  13. 13.

    See ibid.

  14. 14.

    Order U-I-8/21 of 1 April 2021, ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.8.21, paras 25–32.

  15. 15.

    Partial Decision U-I-8/21 of 16 September 2021 (Official Gazette RS No. 167/2021), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.8.21.

  16. 16.

    Ruling No. U-I-8/21 of 2 June 2022, ECLI:SI:USRS:2022:U.I.8.21.

  17. 17.

    As with the docket generally, most of Covid-19 decisions, in particular those where applications were dismissed or not admitted for review on the merits, were unanimous. However, most of those cases which did result in decisions on the merits resulted in the split vote.

  18. 18.

    Concurring separate opinion of Judge Accetto to the Ruling No. U-I-8/21 of 2 June 2022, ECLI:SI:USRS:2022:U.I.8.21, paras 4–9.

  19. 19.

    Decision No. U-I-73/94 of 25 May 1995 (Official Gazette RS No. 37/95 and OdlUS IV, 51), ECLI:SI:USRS:1995:U.I.73.94, para. 17.

  20. 20.

    See a relatively early expression in a case concerning criminal procedure in Decision No. U-I-25/95 of 27 November 1997 (Official Gazette RS No. 5/98 and OdlUS VI, 158), ECLI:SI:USRS:1997:U.I.25.95, paras 31 and 61–62, in which the reviewed statutory provisions were found not to be sufficiently defined.

  21. 21.

    The original text vested the authority to adopt restrictive measures in the minister responsible for health, which was (as stated in the quoted text) amended to refer to the Government.

  22. 22.

    See the next section.

  23. 23.

    Decision No. U-I-79/20 of 13 May 2021 (Official Gazette RS No. 88/2021), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.79.20.

  24. 24.

    Quoting the ECtHR judgments in cases Zakharov v. Russia of 4 December 2015, paras 228 et seq.; Stafford v. the United Kingdom of 28 May 2002, para. 63; Dragin v. Croatia of 24 July 2014, para. 90; and Chumak v. Ukraine of 6 March 2018, para. 39.

  25. 25.

    Decision No. U-I-79/20, n. 24 above, para. 77.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., para. 83.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., para. 96.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., para. 101.

  29. 29.

    Decision No. U-I-155/20 of 7 October 2021, ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.155.20, paras 36–38.

  30. 30.

    Specifically, Article 104 of the Act Determining Temporary Measures to Mitigate and Remedy the Consequences of COVID-19.

  31. 31.

    See Partial Decision U-I-8/21, n. 16 above, paras 26–34.

  32. 32.

    Decision No. U-I-132/21 of 2 June 2022 (Official Gazette RS No. 89/2022), ECLI:SI:USRS:2022:U.I.132.21, paras 19–37.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., para. 38.

  34. 34.

    Order No. U-I-83/20, n. 10 above.

  35. 35.

    Decision U-I-83/20, n. 13 above, para. 50.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., para. 56.

  37. 37.

    See Order No. U-I-50/21 of 15 April 2021 (Official Gazette RS, No. 60/2021), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.50.21.

  38. 38.

    Decision No. U-I-50/21 of 17 June 2021 (Official Gazette RS No. 119/2021), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.50.21, paras 36–51.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., para 40.

  40. 40.

    Decision No. U-I-445/20, U-I-473/20 of 16 September 2021 (Official Gazette RS No. 167/2021), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.445.20.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., para. 28.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., para. 42–51.

  43. 43.

    Decision No. U-I-793/21, U-I-822/21 of 17 February 2022 (Official Gazette RS No. 29/2022) ECLI:SI:USRS:2022:U.I.793.21.

  44. 44.

    See ibid., paras 54–58, identifying several pertinent provisions of the CDA.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., paras 62–79.

  46. 46.

    Decision No. U-I-210/21 of 29 November 2021 (Official Gazette RS, No. 191/21), ECLI:SI:USRS:2021:U.I.210.21.

  47. 47.

    Decision No. U-I-180/21 of 14 April 2022 (Official Gazette RS, No. 60/2022), ECLI:SI:USRS:2022:U.I.180.21.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., paras 44–46.

  49. 49.

    Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the Parliament and Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (OJ L 119, 4 May 2016, pp. 1–88).

  50. 50.

    See Decision No. U-I-180/21, paras 47–50.

  51. 51.

    Referring also to recitals 42 and 43 of the GDPR.

  52. 52.

    See Decision No. U-I-180/21, paras 51–53.

  53. 53.

    In the context of the pandemic, see e.g. “The Twin Crises of Public Health and the Rule of Law”, the document of the World Justice Project from June 2020, available at https://worldjusticeproject.org/news/twin-crises-public-health-and-rule-law.

  54. 54.

    Cf. also AM Pinzon-Rondon et al. (2015), at 7–8.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. President, Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Matej Accetto

  2. Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Matej Accetto

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Rainer Arnold

  2. Cremades and Calvo-Sotelo Abogados, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Cremades

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Accetto, M. (2023). Pandemic and the Rule of Law. In: Arnold, R., Cremades, J. (eds) Rule of Law and the Challenges Posed by the Pandemic. WLC 2021. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39804-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39804-9_11

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