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It is a massive invasion of private and family life.
The Bergen City Council has gone too far, says law professor Hans Fredrik Marthinussen. Photo: Rune Sævig (archive)
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Hans Fredrik Marthinussen
Professor of Law, UiB
DebateThis is a discussion post. The post is written by an external contributor and the quality is assured by BT’s discussion department. Opinions and analyzes are those of the author.
Bergen Municipality has announced that as of Saturday they will ban more than five people in the same home, with no exceptions other than cases in which there are already more than five people in the home.
The surrounding municipalities of Bergen have accepted this ban, apparently without making an independent assessment of whether this is necessary in the municipality in question.
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New measures in the Bergen area: Mandate for home office, maximum five at home and stop in adult leisure activities
This is hard Intervention measures that affect the part of our private sphere that has the greatest constitutional and human rights protection.
The ban means that a single father of four cannot make one of his parents come for relief in everyday life. This means that a “weekend parent” who lives in a family of five cannot have their child visit this weekend.
The ban means that in a family of five, a child in the eighth grade cannot be visited by a classmate. Two grandparents cannot visit the children and grandchildren of a typical nuclear family of four.
Councilor Roger Valhammer reported on Thursday on much stricter measures in Bergen after new outbreaks. Photo: Bård Bøe
This is a huge invasion of private and family life, and article 102 of the Constitution and article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights establish very strict requirements of necessity and proportionality.
In this case, we also don’t get a full justification, and we don’t know what evaluations are behind it. For all intents and purposes, the preparatory work for the Infection Control Law establishes that “there will be no opportunity to isolate close relatives” from each other.
This is done while the city’s restaurant and nightlife are still open.
It is clear that the authorities have ample room for maneuver for intervention measures, when life and health must be protected during a pandemic. In this case, however, the Bergen city council has gone too far and a regulation with the content announced by Valhammer will be invalid.
If the city council wants To limit social gatherings of a “festive nature”, whose real purpose can only be guessed, it is much more precise to do so as national authorities, and to set a limit to the number of guests in the home, such as two or three.
