This article examines the problem of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic from the point of view of the judicial aspect and legal proceedings. The authors note that since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 1,000 court cases have been launched related to state restrictions and manifestations of these public precautions (Mello & Parmet, 2021). Each of these lawsuits, as the researchers note, has the potential to become a precedent in the future by changing the legal field, from closing businesses to forcing people to wear a mask. Throughout history, with the onset of any major pandemic nature of the disease, judicial officials have had to ascertain the level of human rights violations relative to the actual substantive restrictions on saving lives: the 1905 case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts is cited as an example.
At the moment, the authorities are showing great favor to religious institutions, but they are depriving parents of the right to send their children to private schools. The Jacobson case is used as evidence of the power of doctors and police over individual opinion and proves the need to preserve only essential activities in society during a pandemic. The regulation of religious activities that unfolded during the pandemic and was challenged in multiple court hearings was governed precisely by the Jacobson precedent and referred to the principle of risk prevention. With the exception of indulgences towards religious services, the courts, for the most part, did not show favor for individual rights during the emergency. Thus, the contradiction between the fanatical maintenance of religious freedoms and limiting individual freedoms seems to complicate the authorities’ fight against the pandemic in the future.
References
Mello, M. M., & Parmet, W. E. (2021). Public health law after COVID-19. The New England Journal of Medicine.