CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

Birutė Pranevičienė – Violeta Vasiliauskienė – Harald Scheu CYIL 12 (2021) such as e.g. the freedom of movement and residence within the restricted area endangered or affected by the crisis situation. 8 During a state of emergency, the government may, among other things, order the prohibition of entry, stay and movement of people at the determined places and territory 9 and restrict the entry on the territory of the Czech Republic of the persons, who are not citizens of the Czech Republic. 10 With regard to a pandemic crisis, a third legal basis has to be mentioned. Besides the Security Act and the Crisis Act, Act No. 258/2000 Sb., on the Protection of Public Health (Public Health Act) authorizes the Ministry of Health (and some other state authorities like e.g. the regional hygienic stations) to adopt measures preventing the spread of an epidemic. Measures under the Public Health Act are not conditioned by a declaration of a state of emergency. According to Section 69 of the Public Health Act, extraordinary measures may be adopted in the event of an epidemic. 11 Such measures, which have to be in line with the principle of proportionality, may include the prohibition or restriction of contact between groups of natural persons suspected of being infected with other natural persons, and in particular restrictions on travel from certain areas and restrictions on traffic between certain areas. 12 If necessary, the public health protection authority may request the cooperation of the Police of the Czech Republic. This shows that the Czech legal system provides for a number of relevant legal tools in order to react to situations like the COVID-19 crisis. However, Czech law does not clearly define the relationship between the various crisis management mechanisms adopted under the Security Act, the Crisis Act and the Public Health Act. There is uncertainty concerning the delimitation of competences which are exercised by the government, on the one hand, and the Ministry of Health, on the other. It seems that, in a situation of crisis, the government and the Ministry of Health have very similar powers. However, whereas the government may exercise these powers only when an official state of emergency is in force, the Ministry of Health is not limited in this way. From a political perspective, the prolongation of a formal state of emergency is unsecure. Whereas, within the frame of the first wave of anti-COVID measures, the Parliament twice prolonged the state of emergency originally declared on 12 March 2020, 13 there has been a constitutional debate on the repeated extension of the state of emergency during the second wave of anti-COVID measures. The second state of emergency was declared on 5 October2020 and extended on 30 October 2020, on 20 November 2020, on 10 December 2020, on 8 Other rights listed in Section 5 of the Criss Act are the right to inviolability of a person and habitation during evacuation, the right to property, the right to free assembly, the right to operate the business that would endanger crisis measures and the right to strike. 11 The term “epidemic” is not defined by the law. In practice, we speak about an epidemic, when the situation does no longer concern an isolated disease, but represents a greater accumulation of disease incidence in a temporal and local context. A pandemic is a serious type of epidemic, usually a major global event. It causes the disease to spread very quickly to different parts of the world. See Krýsa, I. Zákon o ochraně veřejného zdraví: komentář [Public Health Protection Act: commentary]. Praha: Wolters Kluwer, 2016. 12 Other measures are e.g. prohibitions or restrictions on festivities, theatres and film performances, sports and other gatherings, closures of medical facilities, social services facilities and schools. 13 The state of emergency was prolonged on 9 April 2020 (until 30 April 2020) and on 30 April 2020 (until 17 May 2020). 9 Section 6 of the Crisis Act. 10 Section 7 of the Crisis Act.

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