30 September 2020
The UK parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has released a new report on the impact of the government's response to the pandemic on human rights. The report looks at the rights to life, to liberty, to privacy, to education, to a fair trial and others.
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The Government must urgently consider the human rights implications of COVID-19 measures, says Joint Committee on Human Rights (parliament.uk, link):
"The Joint Committee on Human Rights publishes their Report on the Government's response to COVID-19: human rights implications, which proposes that the Government must urgently address a number of issues to ensure that its handling of the Coronavirus pandemic is human rights compliant.
In March, the Joint Committee on Human Rights announced that it would be scrutinising the Government’s COVID-19 response and issued a call for evidence on this topic. In particular, the Committee announced it would be looking at legislation that the Government bring forward to contain and control the COVID-19 outbreak, how those measures are then implemented, and how the response could be differently affecting different groups of people."
The Government's response to COVID-19: human rights implications (pdf, emphasis added):
"The central aim of the Government’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak in the UK has been to protect lives. The right to life is protected in law in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This requires the state to take appropriate steps to safeguard lives. However, inevitably, attempts to save lives through government actions including the restriction of movements, gatherings, and school closures have engaged numerous other rights. Many have experienced the widest and deepest set of government interferences with their rights in their lifetimes.
Some groups have been particularly at risk from Covid-19. In order to ensure respect for the right to life it is crucial to ask whether the steps taken have done enough to protect the lives of those most vulnerable to the disease. The death rates for older people and those from black, Asian and ethnic minority groups amongst others have been startlingly high in comparison to other groups."
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