—Felipe Oliveira de Sousa, Center for Law, Behaviour and Cognition (CLBC), Ruhr-Universität Bochum The German Bundestag has recently opened discussions about the adoption of a general mandatory vaccination requirement for Covid-19 (Allgemeine Impfpflicht) in Germany. Whereas some voices argue that it would be disproportionate and lead to a strong interference in the fundamental rights of
Mandatory vaccination for the age group of sixty and over in Greece
—Fereniki Panagopoulou, Assistant Professor, Panteion University (Greece) The vaccination programme in Greece, notwithstanding the fact that it was impeccably organized, did not bring about the desired results. It did not convince a large part of the population and, consequently, it did not lead to the attainment of a wall of immunity. In this context, the
Leaving the Rule of Law Behind: How Slovakia is fighting against COVID-19 without Legality
—Tomáš Ľalík, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law, Comenius University, Bratislava The following piece describes a legal regime limiting fundamental rights and freedoms in Slovakia during the fight against pandemic with the emphasis on the rule of law and legality. In particular, I analyse the system of rules put in place that touch on human rights.
ICON Volume 19, Issue 2: Editorial
Editorial: The unequal impact of the pandemic on scholars with care responsibilities: What can journals (and others) do?; Guest Editorial: Constitutional innovations: Tackling incumbency advantage/abuse; In this issue The unequal impact of the pandemic on scholars with care responsibilities: What can journals (and others) do? COVID-19 has been devastating in all sorts of ways for
Pre-departure tests for Singapore citizens returning home: possibly constitutionally tricky in theory, but not in practice
—Benjamin Joshua Ong, Assistant Professor of Law, Singapore Management University Introduction Can a state require that its own citizens may only enter upon production of a test result showing that they are not infected with COVID-19? Albania, Greece, Australia, Samoa, India, the Netherlands, and Cyprus have taken such measures at one time or another. On
Emergency Law in Spain: the Spanish Constitutional Court’s case law
—Germán M. Teruel Lozano, Lecturer in Constitutional Law, University of Murcia When the Constitution reached its twenty-fifth anniversary, back in 2003, Professor Cruz Villalón highlighted the period of “constitutional normality” that we had lived through. In recent years, that normality has been disturbed by some turbulences that have forced the activation of some exceptional mechanisms
Disinformation, Digital Platforms and COVID-19: Making State Agents Accountable in Brazil
—Fabrício Bertini Pasquot Polido and Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) Brazil faces the most critical moment of the COVID-19 pandemic since its beginning in 2020. Death tolls soared to new highs – with more than 300,000 deaths by the end of March 2021 – and the National Public Health System
Democracy on Hold? Framing the Debate on the BARMM Transition in the Philippines
—Armi Beatriz E. Bayot, University of Oxford Faculty of Law [Editors’ Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our four columnists for 2021, please see here.] When the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) took over as interim government of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in 2019,
Ethiopia’s Continuing Constitutional Crisis
—Berihun Adugna Gebeye, Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg [Editors’ Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our four columnists for 2021, please see here.] On April 2, 2018 the Ethiopian parliament elected Abiy Ahmed as prime minister. This was
Malaysia’s Game of Thrones amid a Pandemic: Constitutional Implications and Political Significance of the State of Emergency
—Dian A H Shah, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law The old Malay proverb “terlepas dari mulut buaya, masuk ke mulut harimau” (literally translated as “out of the crocodile’s mouth, into the tiger’s mouth”) seems to be an apt description for Malaysia in the new year. The government, having just re-implemented stricter restrictions in
