“Pandemic Law”: A FREEDOM-KILLING DRAFT BILL
"There currently reigns, in the corridors of power, a certain state of mind. "
"A certain absent-mindedness towards democracy.
The most basic rights of citizens – walking in the street, working, seeing friends – are subject to police regulations whose absurdity sometimes vies with their arbitrariness.
Several of our fundamental freedoms have thus been put on hold for several months.
We are living under curfew – a little more in Brussels than elsewhere.
And in the name of the fight against COVID, our most intimate health choices have been confiscated – while, paradoxically, “family doctors” have been sidelined from the current vaccination campaign."
"It is in this context that the “Pandemic Law” arrives. "
"Tabled by the Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V), her draft bill was discussed this week in committee in Parliament.
For a year now, the government has been steering the health crisis by decree, completely bypassing the usual parliamentary process.
Far from correcting this democratic deficit, which borders on unconstitutionality, the present draft bill would “legally” transfer all power to the executive in the event of a health crisis, turning parliament, at best, into a mere rubber-stamp chamber.
Authority over the police forces would be transferred from the mayors to the Ministry of the Interior.
Offences, punishable by penalties of up to three months in prison and 500 euros in fines, would fall solely under the police courts.
This draft bill would in fact “legalise” a state of health siege – a state of war in peacetime.
Its “data management” section has already been rejected by the Data Protection Authority.
But it is this entire freedom-killing system that must be consigned to oblivion."
"What would have been useful in the face of this health crisis is a law giving more budgetary resources to hospitals and their staff. "
"More nurses, and not more police officers and security guards.
More songs, and not more fiddling.
More debates, and not more arbitrariness.
More parliament, and not more Ministry of the Interior.
In a word, more democracy.
Below we reproduce the appeal of ordinary citizens to their elected representatives."
"Claude Semal, 6 March 2021."
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