Spain's top court rules strict lockdown unconstitional

[brad465]

Some hope perhaps for those of us against lockdowns: Spain's top court has just ruled the strict lockdown last year unconstitutional, and opens the door for any fines issued to be refunded:

Covid: Spain's top court rules lockdown unconstitutional

People fined for breaking lockdown rules will now be able to reclaim their money, the top court says.

www.bbc.co.uk

Spain's top court has ruled that last year's strict coronavirus lockdown was unconstitutional.
The ruling leaves the door open for people who were fined for breaking the rules to reclaim the money they paid.
But the court said it would not accept lawsuits from people and businesses who want to sue the government because they lost money due to the lockdown.
The government declared a state of emergency on 14 March 2020 to curb the first wave of Covid-19 infections.
At the time, coronavirus cases and deaths were rising and hospitals were quickly becoming overwhelmed. Since then, more than 81,000 people in Spain have died with coronavirus.
Spain has three levels of emergency: state of emergency, state of exception, and the highest level, state of siege.
Under the emergency rules almost all people in the country were ordered to stay at home, and were only permitted to leave for essential reasons. All but essential businesses were closed.
The laws were in place until June 2020, though some restrictions were reinstated later in the year when the country faced a second wave.

 

[island]

As the UK lacks a proper written constitution the chance of anything similar happening here is very low.

 

[Eyersey468]

As the UK lacks a proper written constitution the chance of anything similar happening here is very low.

Apologies for maybe going off topic, technically the UK does have a written constitution, it's just not all written down in the same place, Magna Carta, the 1789 Bill of Rights plus various other things make up the written constitution

 

[island]

That’s not a “proper” written constitution. See for example Ireland, the USA, the Netherlands for what a proper written constitution looks like.

Back on topic, sadly Spain is sliding back into restrictions and heightened cases, so the victory seems Pyrrhic (or however you spell that).

 

[brad465]

Apologies for maybe going off topic, technically the UK does have a written constitution, it's just not all written down in the same place, Magna Carta, the 1789 Bill of Rights plus various other things make up the written constitution

Were there not some anti-lockdown folk who last year tried to use the Magna Carta as justification that lockdowns violate our rights?

 

[AlterEgo]

Were there not some anti-lockdown folk who last year tried to use the Magna Carta as justification that lockdowns violate our rights?

Yes. They were daft.

 

[35B]

Some hope perhaps for those of us against lockdowns: Spain's top court has just ruled the strict lockdown last year unconstitutional, and opens the door for any fines issued to be refunded:

Covid: Spain's top court rules lockdown unconstitutional

People fined for breaking lockdown rules will now be able to reclaim their money, the top court says.

www.bbc.co.uk

The important point in that story is not the decision, but the reasoning. The Spanish government, under Spanish constitutional law, did not follow the right process in implementing its chosen policies. It was not a ruling on the appropriateness of the restrictions in themselves.

It’s also worth noting that this decision, even before Brexit, would not read across to English law, or have any relevance to what a court here would have ordered.

 

[Grecian 1998]

The Spanish lockdown was particularly heavy-handed - a complete ban on outdoor exercise (although not walking dogs, which led some people to borrow dogs from others, including stuffed ones) and a complete ban on children under 15 leaving the house for two months. There were also the police numbers to ensure this was enforced.

Whilst not wanting to downplay ours or its effects, I suspect if any part of the UK had tried to enact such rules and had the police numbers to do so, there might have been rather more of a legal challenge. Even for those who thought we could only exercise once a day for one hour (the first point being guidance, the second being made up on the spot by Michael Gove), I suspect this still acted as a valuable pressure release for an awful lot of people.

Entirely speculative though, we'll never know.

 

[yorkie]

The Spanish authorities committed child abuse on a mass scale.

Had it been tried in the UK, there would have been resistance (and I would have been joining that resistance)

 

[TravelDream]

Had it been tried in the UK, there would have been resistance.

Just quoting to say this is just not true.
The British public are one of the most compliant in terms of following the rules of all societies across Europe.

Yes, we are different to Spain in they have more police officers there which made enforcement more possible. Over 230,000 officers for 47 million versus 153,000 for 65 million in the UK. However, during the early stages of the pandemic, rules were followed fairly strictly in my experience.

It would be different if enacted today in the UK of course. The rules are followed a lot less closely than they were.