Towards a pandemic state? Some evaluations based on the Covid-19 effect

Abstract

The health crisis caused by COVID-19, declared by the WHO as a pandemic, has posed a challenge for constitutional systems and for the guarantees of some fundamental rights. The present study aims to highlight how even, in democratic systems, exceptional situations of concentration of power demand control more than ever. On the other hand, the fragility of fundamental rights for especially vulnerable groups is also noted, which requires the adoption of measures to alleviate this situation. This process will be analyzed in this study, circumscribed to the experience of the health emergency in Spain. The starting point will be the model of a “pandemic” State, that is, a State in which the Executive Power has concentrated sole command and which has been combined with a limitation of the rights and freedoms of citizens justified in the unprecedented situation. The exceptionality of the declaration of a state of alarm and its excesses and effects with respect to fundamental rights and their guarantees will be reviewed. Attention will also be paid to the proposals for protection measures for those vulnerable groups that have been especially affected by the situation (elderly people, minors, people with special needs, women victims of violence and trafficking, prisoners, the poor and above all, the sick). Covid-19 is testing democratic states and their various reactions, which has brought to light in some cases their efficiency and, in others, their ineffectiveness.