Spanish justice declared unconstitutional the quarantine during the pandemic | The court upheld a request from the far right

The Constitutional Court of Spain, the highest judicial body in the country, ruled today that the quarantine order issued by the government last year as part of the state of emergency due to the pandemic of coronavirus was “unconstitutional”.

The judgment, which responds to a complaint filed by the far-right party Vox, was divided: six magistrates voted in favor of the declaration of unconstitutionality and five against.

The ruling maintains that the traffic restrictions violated citizens’ basic rights and, therefore, the state of emergency was insufficient to give them constitutional support.

With the pandemic on the rise, Pedro Sánchez’s government declared a state of emergency on March 14, 2020, allowing people to go out exclusively for basic shopping or essential activities.

The move came amid a rebound in infections associated with the Delta variant and just as some regions again announced new restrictions.

Catalonia, one of the epicenters of the escalation, was preparing to ask the courts for authorization to re-establish the night curfew in Barcelona and in the cities most affected, like the neighboring Valencian Community. , which has already been given the green light.

If this goal is achieved, Catalonia would accelerate the turnaround started last week, when it decreed the closure of nightlife places in interior spaces for at least 15 days, alarmed by the explosion of infections.

Meanwhile, courts in the Canary Islands have denied similar measures promoted by local authorities.

“The data is more than terrible, it is frankly very, very bad”, warned on Monday the regional health manager of Catalonia, Josep Maria Argimon, during a press conference during which the closure of all activities was announced from 12:30 a.m.

With a cumulative incidence of 3,311.46 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in fourteen days among young people aged 20 to 29, Catalonia leads the epidemic in the peninsula, while the national average for all ages is of 436.75 cases.

Catalonia figures

In the past three weeks, the region of 7.7 million people has recorded more than 100,000 positive cases, out of the 800,000 that have accumulated since the start of the pandemic, according to The avant-garde.

In this context, municipalities like Barcelona have been asking for days for help to control access to beaches and parks, points of concentration for youth gatherings since the lifting of the curfew in early May.

Driven by the contagious variant originating in India and with a large part of the vulnerable population vaccinated, this new wave is different, with younger patients, many still unvaccinated or with incomplete doses.

“Now what weighs on us a lot is hospitalization; the question is whether this will make a shift to intensive care, as has happened in other waves or if, being a more patient. young, it probably does not end up happening in the end, ”he explained Álvaro Arcocha, deputy medical director of the Hospital de Bellvitge, in the metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona.

The main concern is now to manage the rebound during the vacation period of health personnel and after the relaxation of measures, such as wearing a face mask, which is no longer mandatory since June 26 in open places.

Local authorities can no longer resort to the legal shield of the state of alert, which ceased to apply in early May, which requires decisions such as curfew to be ratified by justice. The national bet is, for the moment, to continue to accelerate a vaccination which progresses at a very good pace.

“In the week of July 19, we will reach 25 million Spaniards with a full directive; this means that by the end of August we will already have 70 percent of the population vaccinated with a full directive, ”the Prime Minister said last night. in an interview, Pedro Sanchez.