Journal of Constitutional Law (Jun 2020)
State of Emergency: A Shortcut to Authoritarianism
Abstract
From the beginning of 21st century, legal ramifications of declaring a state of emergency have attracted a lot of attention due to the fact that many states have resorted to this measure in order to combat, first, terrorism threat, and most recently – a new pandemic – COVID-19. However, a state of emergency is certainly not a new issue, and there is a large body of scholarly work dedicated to it, alongside the issue of derogations from fundamental human rights and liberties both from international human rights law and constitutional law perspective. This article focuses on constitutional legal aspects of the state of emergency and derogations from human rights obligations and is aiming to address some of the problems that might occur during a state of emergency. It will be argued that a state of emergency represents a convenient shortcut to authoritarianism and that a strict constitutional legal framework is necessary to be put in place in order to prevent the spread of exceptional provisions within the legal system, which could lead to the normalization of a state of exception.
