Seite - 249 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
Bild der Seite - 249 -
Text der Seite - 249 -
CHAPTER C-1
Civil Liberties vs. Public Health
Colleen M. Flood,* Bryan Thomas,** and Dr. Kumanan Wilson***
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the challenges governments face
in balancing civil liberties against the exigencies of public health, amid
the chaos of a public health emergency. A key question concerns the
evidentiary standards for justifying interferences with civil liberties.
Superficially, civil liberties law and public health appear to invoke
opposite evidentiary standards: under the principle of proportional-
ity, civil libertarians demand strong evidence of the necessity of inter-
ference with civil liberties, while public health officials, invoking the
precautionary principle, urge that intrusive measures be taken—limits
on social gatherings, for example—even without conclusive evidence
of their necessity. In this chapter, we argue that the two principles are
not so oppositional in practice. In testing for proportionality, courts
recognize the need to defer to governments on complex policy mat-
ters, especially where the interests of vulnerable populations are at
stake. For their part, public health experts have incorporated ideas of
* University Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy &
Ethics, University of Ottawa.
** Senior Research Associate and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Health Law, Policy
& Ethics, University of Ottawa.
*** Physician Scientist, The Ottawa Hospital, Professor of Medicine, University of
Ottawa, and member of the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy
and Ethics.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International