Sorry, which countries ditched their constitutions during COVID?

Either sidestepped (the Netherlands), or temporarily overruled (most countries of Europe).

Constitutions provide freedom of movement/association/gathering, usually, putting a fine on being close to others or gathering is messing with the constitution.

It's okay to do so, but only in real crazy events. A virus with a 99+ survival rate is not such event IMHO. We need to make our constitutions virus-proof.

de facto Italy did. None of the early acts went through the parliament, but were moves made by the PM alone.

Suspensions of rights in exceptional cases is granted only in the case of war, or by law (and that means going through the parliament).

Did Italy throw out their constitution, or does it permit emergency acts by the PM? The distinction is critical.

There's a law from 1992 that describes the process of "state of emergency" and decrees

https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/1992/03/17/092G0253/...

Starting from article 5. It seems that any such state of emergency can last up to 12 months and be extended for 12 more months. The current state of emergency is going to last until the end of July, and there are discussions about extending it.

That's a regular law, not part of the constitution, article 77 of the constitution provides further rules:

https://www.senato.it/1025?sezione=127&articolo_numero_artic...

It's not clear, and I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I found some interesting articles that describe the situation:

https://www.agensir.it/italia/2020/05/07/dpcm-e-coinvolgimen...

Context: the emergency acts are "decreto legge" and "dpcm" they are listed here:

http://www.governo.it/it/coronavirus-normativa

And this explains what dpcm are:

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decreto_ministeriale_(ordina...

Apparently, article 77 describes 2 deadlines: 5 days for the parliament to vote on the decrees and 60 days for the laws to be finalized.

I think that the crux of the issue is: whatever is inside those "decreto legge/dpcm", it has to be approved by parliament... There have been multiple such decrees, and the only controversial point is for how long can a parliament decision be delayed (in theory only for up to 5 days, but I'm starting to get lost in details).

Due to how many decrees have been created, I'd need to check for when each one of them has been (or is being planned to be) voted on

Most of them, were, IIRC, only "reported to" parliament. After reopening on May 4th, some of them were voted.

I admit I worded my post poorly: a state of emergency exists, but limiting constitutional rights is, AFAICS, only permitted through law.

"DPCM" are mere administrative acts, and a few people expert in the judicial system have raised objections about their use in this way (including the head of the constitutional court). In particular, the debate is whether they can or can't limit constitutional rights.

There's no such thing as a state of emergency, only the state of war. Anything else needs to go through the parliament, directly or indirectly.

By indirectly I mean something akin to the USA executive order, but agreed upon the cabinet, not the PM, then countersigned by the President, who can veto it. Then it lasts 60 days and must be confirmed by the parliament, or becomes void.

Keep in mind the constitution was written right after WW2, so the writers were carrying the scars of "emergency measures" going into dictatorship.

There are a few things that can be done by the health ministry, but nothing as big as a country wide lockdown.

> Sorry, which countries ditched their constitutions during COVID?

It really depends on your personal definition of "ditched their constitution".

For example, Spain "declared state of alarm" which suspends temporarily some constitutional rights.

> For example, Spain "declared state of alarm" which suspends temporarily some constitutional rights.

A procedure that is presumably permitted by said constitution, right?

> A procedure that is presumably permitted by said constitution, right?

Yes, the Spanish constitution does explicitly support state of alarm, which is a way to suspend constitutional rights.

https://english.elpais.com/politics/2020-03-13/what-is-a-sta...

Then when they needed that state of alarm extended, they started negotiating with separatist parties and all sense of decency vanished in a puff of smoke.

Unfortunately during a state of alarm is when you need your rights the most.

Your comment doesn't make any sense. Could you elaborate on that in case you've just left out any key detail?

Well what I mean to say is during a panic the government has the most means and motivation to step on your rights. It’s also a time when the tyranny of the majority can come into play.

The interment of Japanese citizens during WW2 is one example.

That happened in a country with a Constitution, which sorta proves that you shouldn't put your faith in a Constitution.

The only way good things get done is if people continually fight and push for them. Laziness will doom you, no matter what pretty words are on a paper somewhere.

And in a pandemic, "good things get done" has a very different definition than it does at other times, something no static set of law is going to be able to anticipate. You have to be active and you have to be flexible.

It depends on which rights.

Certainly, many rights need not be affected by a pandemic at all, and countries that have tried to use it as an excuse to crack down on those rights should be condemned. For example, the Indian government has threatened freedom of the press by trying to censor news coverage of the pandemic. [1]

On the other hand, as an opposite extreme, freedom of movement is something that in normal times is considered a right, but absolutely can and should be limited during a pandemic.

Other rights are somewhere in between. For example, in the U.S., the use of the Defense Production Act to compel ventilator production could be considered a violation of economic freedom (which has often been thought of as a right, though it's not a Constitutional right), and it wasn't strictly necessary. But in practice there wasn't too much controversy over it; most people seem to tolerate the idea of the government temporarily commandeering the economy in emergencies, especially for something as obviously beneficial as making ventilators. (Though there might have been more controversy if a Democratic president had done it, but that's getting into the political weeds…)

[1] https://cpj.org/2020/03/indian-supreme-court-denies-governme...

Here's a list of countries with HR abuses during the pandemic. Most democratic contries have Human Rights provisions in their constutions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_issues_related_...

Most European states, including Russia have also signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

China, Poland, Turkey, Turkmenistan...

All of these countries had troubling human rights issues pre-COVID.

Poland had HR issues?

Absolutely.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/27...

> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke by phone Sunday and agreed to open a dialogue to avoid further diplomatic fallout following Poland’s initial approval of a law making it a criminal offense to mention Polish complicity in crimes committed during the Holocaust.

I believe they backtracked a bit on that one after the outcry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_ideology-free_zone

> An "LGBT-free zone" (Polish: Strefa wolna od LGBT) also referred to as "LGBT free zone" (Polish: Strefa wolna od LGBT) refers to some regions of Poland which have declared themselves unwelcoming of an alleged "LGBT ideology." As of June 2020, some 100 municipalities (including five voivodships), encompassing about a third of the country, declared themselves "LGBT-free zones".

I’m sorry, do you seriously consider these issues to be as bad as the human rights situation in China?

You asked "Poland had HR issues?", not "Poland had HR issues of exactly equal magnitude to China?"

The highlighted issues make it clear Poland was willing to infringe on speech/expression rights even without the excuse of COVID.

Are there countries which don’t have HR issues?

How did you know that China had human rights issues?

Yup. Iceland and generally nordic states, Canada.

Are you from any of those countries? If not, how do you know?

So you basically asked a question but with the assumption that the answer is unknowable.

Great show of good faith there /s.

> That's more than we can say for US/China. They keep up the appearance of being "the best".

That appearance is long gone in the US. Last week Trump complained to the press that the US isn't doing as bad as we think because Mexico and Brazil are also doing poorly.

So there's a long way between "we are the best" and "hey, maybe just maybe we don't suck as much as other countries that are doing awfully bad".