TY - ICOMM

T1 - Slovakia: Change of Government under COVID-19 Emergency

AU - Drugda, Simon

AU - Hanečková, Slavomíra

N1 - Henčeková, Slavomíra; Drugda, Šimon: Slovakia: Change of Government under COVID-19 Emergency, VerfBlog, 2020/5/22, https://verfassungsblog.de/slovakia-change-of-government-under-covid-19-emergency/, DOI: https://doi.org/10.17176/20200522-133225-0.

PY - 2020/5/22

Y1 - 2020/5/22

N2 - At the time when Italy was trying to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in the northern region of Lombardy, politics in Slovakia were in the middle of a heated campaign in the run-up to the general election on 29 February 2020. Many holidaymakers used the opportunity to vote from abroad through postal ballot, without the need to return early from their travel abroad. The first case of the disease was confirmed in Slovakia on 6 March. Thereafter, everything unfolded quickly. The country closed its borders to non-residents and non-citizens on 13 March. All international travel by air and land halted. The number of confirmed cases was up to a hundred in the early days of the emergency, with no deaths.The new government formed within three weeks of the election. The most substantial change in the executive for almost a decade happened inconspicuously because of the impending public health crisis, which overshadowed everything else. The new government headed by the winning party OĽaNO (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) replaced in power the party of three-time PM Rober Fico. New PM Igor Matovič came into power on an anti-corruption platform, and it was immediately not clear if he was ready to fight against a global pandemic instead. The government, consisting of four parties with the constitutional majority, was formally appointed on 21 March and had to focus its attention on contingency planning immediately, withouth having the benefit of experience and comprehensive understanding of the processes in the healthcare system. Within four days of appointment, on 25 March, the government secured passage of omnibus emergency legislation ("COVID-19 emergency legislative package"), which focused primarily on two areas: quick adjustments to secure continuous functioning of the judiciary, and the implementation of a scheme for tracking and retaining phone data. In the first two sections of this contribution, we examine the legal framework of the state of emergency in Slovakia and the key provisions of the omnibus legislation. In the third section, we pick five measures which temporarily restricted human rights and freedoms of specific groups of citizens, namely foreigners, persons returning from abroad, members of the ethnic minority in several hotspots of COVID-19, and seniors. The relative inexperience of the new government led to it committing mistakes that infringed In this contribution. We pick five of them, with the most consequence for the rights and freedoms of citizens.

AB - At the time when Italy was trying to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in the northern region of Lombardy, politics in Slovakia were in the middle of a heated campaign in the run-up to the general election on 29 February 2020. Many holidaymakers used the opportunity to vote from abroad through postal ballot, without the need to return early from their travel abroad. The first case of the disease was confirmed in Slovakia on 6 March. Thereafter, everything unfolded quickly. The country closed its borders to non-residents and non-citizens on 13 March. All international travel by air and land halted. The number of confirmed cases was up to a hundred in the early days of the emergency, with no deaths.The new government formed within three weeks of the election. The most substantial change in the executive for almost a decade happened inconspicuously because of the impending public health crisis, which overshadowed everything else. The new government headed by the winning party OĽaNO (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) replaced in power the party of three-time PM Rober Fico. New PM Igor Matovič came into power on an anti-corruption platform, and it was immediately not clear if he was ready to fight against a global pandemic instead. The government, consisting of four parties with the constitutional majority, was formally appointed on 21 March and had to focus its attention on contingency planning immediately, withouth having the benefit of experience and comprehensive understanding of the processes in the healthcare system. Within four days of appointment, on 25 March, the government secured passage of omnibus emergency legislation ("COVID-19 emergency legislative package"), which focused primarily on two areas: quick adjustments to secure continuous functioning of the judiciary, and the implementation of a scheme for tracking and retaining phone data. In the first two sections of this contribution, we examine the legal framework of the state of emergency in Slovakia and the key provisions of the omnibus legislation. In the third section, we pick five measures which temporarily restricted human rights and freedoms of specific groups of citizens, namely foreigners, persons returning from abroad, members of the ethnic minority in several hotspots of COVID-19, and seniors. The relative inexperience of the new government led to it committing mistakes that infringed In this contribution. We pick five of them, with the most consequence for the rights and freedoms of citizens.

KW - Faculty of Law

KW - Covid-19

KW - Government response

KW - Location tracking

KW - Digital courts

KW - Remote courts

KW - Human rights

UR - https://verfassungsblog.de/slovakia-change-of-government-under-covid-19-emergency/

M3 - Net publication - Internet publication

PB - Verfassungsblog

ER -