ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic placed a rare focus on this tension in many countries across the world. The urgent need to protect citizens from spreading the disease, against the wish of citizens to maintain existing freedoms or, at worst, lose some of them for the least time possible, has been a daily struggle. The accommodation of each to the needs of the other succeeded in varying degrees. Some have even queried about whether state-imposed lockdowns, imposing limitations on movement and obligations for social distancing, had a legal basis.
There is no argument that it was necessary for each nation to consider and apply measures to contain the virus in its population. Now that we are past the peak of the outbreak, this chapter examines comparatively across a number of jurisdictions just how much populations have accepted state-imposed limitations and what constitutional or other legal basis nations had for their actions. John Stuart Mill argued that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’.
Have these powers been rightfully exercised? This chapter considers a number of responses to the crisis across jurisdictions to determine whether legal authority has supported the response to an unanticipated event.
