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Row brewing over Coronavirus Act

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29 September 2020
Issue: 7904 / Categories: Legal News , Covid-19 , Constitutional law , Human rights
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Coalition of civil rights groups call for Act to be scrapped
Human rights group Liberty has called on MPs to repeal the Coronavirus Act as it endangers civil liberties, ahead of a parliamentary vote on renewal.

The Act, which was passed in March, gives the government sweeping powers to respond to the pandemic. However, these powers were time-limited, and require the approval of MPs this week to be renewed.

Up to 80 Conservative MPs reportedly supported Sir Graham Brady MP’s attempt to table an amendment this week that would have given the Commons a vote on further pandemic restrictions. 

Labour were considering whether to support the amendment or table their own. Martha Spurrier, barrister and director of Liberty, writing in The Guardian this week, called the Act ‘the biggest restriction on civil liberties in a generation’. She highlighted the power given by the Act to the police to detain any suspected infectious person, which was ‘so broad it invites misuse’. Monthly Crown Prosecution Service reviews of the power had concluded all 44 suspected infectious people detained between March and May were wrongly charged.

Spurrier warned the Act allows government to postpone elections and close borders and, while it has been reported that it will lapse after two years, ‘read it carefully and you’ll see that any part of it can be extended for a further six months—with indefinite renewals possible, without prior parliamentary approval’.

Liberty was part of a coalition of 20 human rights groups, including Justice, Big Brother Watch and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, urging MPs to scrap the Act. In a joint statement, they said the Act ‘weakens social care safeguards, leaving people without vital support. It removes protections for people experiencing mental health crises. It has created unworkable police powers that have been disproportionately used against people of colour. It threatens our fundamental right to protest’.

The 329-page Act contains a wide range of powers to stem the pandemic, including powers to restrict or prohibit public gatherings, including political protests. It suspends local authorities’ legal duty to meet people’s care needs, and removes the requirement for two doctors to sign off detention of a patient under the Mental Health Act 1983.

Issue: 7904 / Categories: Legal News , Covid-19 , Constitutional law , Human rights
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