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Rodrigo Uprimny, lawyer, professor at the National University and former director of the NGO Dejusticia, says that we are experiencing a triple emergency.
The first is sanitary, due to the risks of the virus; the second is legal, due to the exceptional measures that governments have taken to confront the pandemic; and the last one is a worldwide emergency due to the changes that are taking place.
“I don’t think a postcovid-19 world is identical. After this, the world will be as we behave during the pandemic, ” says Uprimny.
(You may be interested: Did the quarantine grab you in another city? So you could go back to yours)
Is the quarantine measure constitutional?
There is no clear legal, constitutional or legal framework to face a challenge like the pandemic; general regulations do not provide for general quarantines.
There is a 1979 law that decrees quarantines for some people who pose risks of contagion, and the exceptional regime with a state of emergency does not seem totally appropriate for these measures either, since everything indicates that they will be intermittent for a long term, and the regimes of exception in Colombia are of short duration.
This has meant that the Government and local municipalities have used some exceptional instruments. The government’s declaration of emergency did allow it to take certain legislative measures to confront the pandemic, such as establishing an extraordinary tax on higher-income public servants or creating the Emergency Mitigation Fund (FOME), have been important things and some successful, not all.
The world will be according to how we behave during the pandemic
So how can you understand the measures of the presidency and the mayoralties?
Formally, these decrees, both from the president and the mayor of Bogotá, have no clear formal legal basis, even though I believe that they are measures that, in substance, in what is proposed and in the proportionality of the restriction, They are correct because the only way to prevent an exponential spread of contagion at that time was to order a general quarantine.
This shows that it is necessary to correct or adjust the Colombian legal system so that it is clearer who can take the quarantine measures, under what conditions and what the controls are.
Legally, what paths are left?
Several lawyers are debating whether the control of quarantine decrees has to wait for an action for annulment filed by a citizen, today those actions are suspended.
In this sense, there are two things to look at. First, if it is a decree that has immediate control over the legality of the Council of State, because it has to do with emergency measures, even if it is not formally a regulatory decree of emergency decrees. Second, if the Constitutional Court should formally advocate it for being, materially, a kind of legislative decree.
So, there is a legal uncertainty that is not convenient and that is why we have proposed that the Constitutional Court, when analyzing the emergency decrees, clarify this situation and that Congress enter to regulate this issue establishing an appropriate legal legal framework in the matter of restriction of liberties and quarantines.
The only way to prevent contagion without increasing poverty is with an economic redistribution
How do you rate the measures that have been taken?
They are appropriate and go in a very good direction, although I have doubts about the regulation of the use of resources. However, I believe that two main types of measures have been lacking: the first, a measure to establish greater transparency and know what the scientific foundations of the decisions taken by the Government are, because quarantine is relaxed, but we do not know if it is already it flattened the curve enough to authorize those measures, if we have enough biosecurity instruments to guarantee the safety of workers.
My second big criticism is that the Government has not taken sufficiently redistributive measures; the only way to prevent contagion without increasing poverty is with an economic redistribution. That is to say, with the transfer of resources from those who have more income and more property to create a basic income during the time of the pandemic, and in this the Government has been excessively shy. With a wealth tax, resources necessary to maintain a special basic income for vulnerable people can be obtained.
Many academics fearfully believe that this pandemic will help authoritarianism to emerge, what do you think?
The use of emergency powers is risky because it implies a concentration of powers in the executive. But that will also depend on our exercising our right of suspicion against the use of the powers of exception, we cannot give governments a blank check, controls must be exercised so that the emergency powers are properly used.
POLITICS
