Responsibility of State Authorities and Their Members for Unconstitutional Restrictions on the Individual Rights and Freedoms in Times of the State of the Epidemic Threat and the State of the Epidemic Cover Image

Odpowiedzialność organów władzy państwowej i ich członków za niekonstytucyjne ograniczenia praw i wolności jednostki w czasie stanu zagrożenia epidemicznego i stanu epidemii
Responsibility of State Authorities and Their Members for Unconstitutional Restrictions on the Individual Rights and Freedoms in Times of the State of the Epidemic Threat and the State of the Epidemic

Author(s): Piotr Uziębło
Subject(s): Politics, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Politics and law, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: COVID-19; political responsibility; liability; legislative unlawfulness; rights and freedoms during the state of the epidemic;

Summary/Abstract: The introduction of the state of the epidemic threat in Poland, and then the state of the epidemic, revealed far-reaching violations of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in the sphere of individual rights and freedoms, which are the result of regulations contained in in the Act on Combating Infectious Diseases of 2008, as well as in the acts that were adopted for its implementation. On the basis of this case, it is worth asking about the responsibility of persons participating in the process of adopting such defective normative acts. In this article, the author considers the potential options for enforcing such responsibility. The conclusions that follow show little chance to draw legal consequences against persons participating in the procedure of adopting those normative acts. Similarly, political responsibility is illusory. Therefore, it becomes necessary to consider introducing amendments to the Polish legal system that will allow for effective attribution of the liability to persons who participated in the adoption of normative acts that grossly violated the provisions of the Constitution. Such actions, however, would require not only changes to the existing legislation, and sometimes even the Constitution, but also the political will to do so, which can be considered the main problem.

  • Issue Year: 17/2021
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 5-28
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Polish