Legal aspects of restricting the movement of persons in the context of combating the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The finding of an exceptional situation, such as the need to combat a pandemic, has an effect on a number of social spheres, requiring a legal response that will securely regulate the relations arising from this new reality. The present work aims to identify legal responses under construction to adverse social issues, with a focus on limiting the circulation of people as a measure to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus, and to analyze them with a focus on delimiting the competence for determining such measures, as well as the related criminal aspects. To this end, comparative jurisprudential, bibliographic and law research was used to identify the answers already available for these situations. It has been found that legal science lives sui generis moment, and that the impacts of the pandemic on law will be felt in the long term, leading to new and challenging interpretations of its institutes.