CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

Birutė Pranevičienė – Violeta Vasiliauskienė – Harald Scheu CYIL 12 (2021) A state extraordinary situation is proclaimed by the Government, which also appoints the head of the operations centre of the extraordinary situation. Furthermore, a regime of quarantine has been introduced which is based on the Law on Contagious Diseases 29 . Article 2 describes quarantine as “a special regime for the application of measures for the prevention and control of contagious diseases in individual establishments (“restricted quarantine facilities”) “r in infected areas (“area quarantine”), where the prevalence of contagious pathogens of unknown origin or as well as outbreaks or epidemics of dangerous contagious diseases.” The right to proclaim quarantine is vested in the Government, acting upon the initiative of the Minister of Health. The restrictions of human rights ought to be enshrined in laws detailing the conditions of such restrictions. In this sense there was a problem with the general nature of the provisions of the Law on Contagious Diseases, Article 21, which stated in general terms that a “quarantine is issued in order to establish special procedures for work, living, rest, travel, economic and other activities of persons, procedures for production of products, their sale, supply of drinking water and provision of services and thereby to limit the spread of communicable diseases”. 30 However, neither this nor other laws set out the possible criteria, scope, or conditions for the introduction of restrictions on human rights and freedoms. The overly general provisions of the abovementioned law in force at the time of the adoption of the resolutions restricting movement could not be considered as a sufficient legal basis for the application of such measures. The law was amended on 31 March 2021. The amendment came into force on 8 April 2021, detailing the measures that can be adopted to limit freedom of movement and economic activity and thus solved the issue of the absence of the indications of limitations of human rights in the law. 3.2 Measures of the executive branch Like in the Czech Republic, the Government and the Health Ministry of Lithuania were the most important actors in the process of setting the restrictions on the right to movement. The measures were introduced in the beginning of the pandemic by two decrees of Government. On 26 February 2020, a state level extraordinary situation was declared in the territory of Lithuania due to the risk of the spread of coronavirus COVID-19. 31 Furthermore, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, in 2020 March 14, adopted a resolution, announcing the third (full readiness) level of civil protection system readiness in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania and in the first stage from 16 March 2020 until 30 March introduced a quarantine regime in the country. 32 Subsequently, the quarantine was extended several times by government decrees. The quarantine regime allows for unusual, radical and non-routine restrictions on activities. Such restrictions are related to the epidemiological situation in the country. The Government Emergency Commission of the Republic of Lithuania 33 proposed to 29 Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases of Humans. Valstybės žinios, 1996-10-30, Nr. 104-2363. 30 Ibid. 31 Decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania “Regarding the Declaration of the State Level Extraordinary Situation” TAR, 2020-02-26, Nr. 4023. 32 Decree of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania “Regarding the Declaration of Quarantine in the Republic of Lithuania” TAR, 2020-03-14, Nr. 5466. 33 The body responsible for the management of the extraordinary situation in Lithuania, and providing proposals for the Government on the measures against COVID-19 pandemic.

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