Constitutional Environment of State of Emergency in the Light of the Experience of Covid-19 Pandemic

On 11-12 May 2023, the Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights hosted the conference "Constitutional Environment of State of Emergency in the Light of the Experience of Covid-19 Pandemic".

In the time since the pandemic, academics, as well as high-ranking judges from the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, for example, reflected on a range of constitutional and human rights issues and themes related to the legal response mechanism to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the first day, the main questions were whether the constitutional and statutory changes to the regulatory mechanisms were appropriate from the perspective of constitutional rule of law principles, whether the restrictions on fundamental rights were justified (especially necessary and proportionate), whether the institutional safeguards to prevent abuse of emergency powers (parliamentary oversight, constitutional review, judicial protection, ombudsman, etc.) were functioning properly, or whether and how the experience of managing the pandemic justified a change in emergency legislation. On the second day, the panellists then focused on issues related to the long-term impact of the pandemic on the institutional and organisational structures of the state and the law enforcement system.