GOVERNMENT’S covid19 regulations, implemented in March 2020, have been upheld by the Privy Council.
In a unanimous ruling on two appeals that challenged the public health regulations, the London court on Monday also resolved a conflict on the balancing of constitutional rights with legislation that restrict some of them and the power of the Parliament to make such laws.
The decision was written by Lords Sales and Hamblen with whom Lords Reed, Hodge, and Lady Rose agreed. In March, the five judges heard arguments on the two appeals, reserving their decision at the time.
In one of the appeals, five men who were arrested at Alicia’s Guest House on April 9, 2020, and charged under regulations that limited gatherings to groups of no more than five people, challenged the regulations. In the other, Pundit Satyanand Maharaj challenged the regulations on the basis that the prohibition on gatherings did not apply to religious gatherings and was vague and uncertain, as it criminalised breaches of the guidelines for places of worship.
[caption id="attachment_960718" align="alignnone" width="768"] Pundit Satyanand Maharaj. -[/caption]
In September 2020, then High Court judge Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh dismissed the challenge of Dominic Suraj and the others, while partially upholding Maharaj’s challenge involving the regulations over criminal sanctions for breaches related to places of worship.
In April 2021, the Court of Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Justices of Appeal Mira Dean-Armorer and James Aboud, dismissed the appeal of the five men, ruling that the regulations passed under the colonial-age Public Health Ordinance (PHO) were not unconstitutional. The court also upheld a counter-appeal brought by the Office of the Attorney General to Maharaj’s challenge, reversing Boodoosingh’s decision on the issue.
In its ruling, the Court of Appeal held the decades-old public health ordinance was protected by the Constitution, and the regulations made under it were also protected from challenge by the savings clause, which insulates colonial legislation from review except by Parliament.
On this issue, the Privy Council judges said, “There is good reason to think that the framers of the Constitution intended that the regime in the Constitution should not displace the regime in the Ordinance.
“Both regimes set out useful powers which provide the government with options about how to proceed in the face of a public health emergency.”
They said a government that decided to respond to a “difficult public health issue cautiously and with restraint,” by employing powers under the ordinance, “should not then be exposed to legal challenges based on the contention that the President ought instead to have declared a public emergency.”
“The public interest requires that the government should be able to respond flexibly and with confidence that the measures it takes will not be unduly at risk of legal challenge. The framers of the Constitution c
