Democracy in an Age of Pandemic: Civil and Human Rights and the Choice between Freedom and Safety

Abstract

The health and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has grown into a political crisis. It manifests itself primarily in challenges to the institutions of liberal democ-racy, particularly in ensuring a legitimate legal and political framework for action and crisis management in an emergency situation. This paper examines the implementation of public health measures to protect life and health (epidemiological measures, vaccinations), which by their very nature involve restrictions on civil liberties, and analyzes their legitimacy and appropriateness against the standards of liberal democracy. The theoretical and legal-political framework of the analysis is the relationship between freedom and safety, i.e. between the civil rights and liberties guaranteed in liberal democracy and the right to life and health as a fundamental human right. Based on the distinction between these two concepts and the analysis of the scope and manner of the implementation of public health measures – especially in the current context of the crisis of liberal democracy and the populist instrumentalization of civil rights for certain political goals and the state of infodemics – the specifics of this relationship are determined. Following the findings of this analysis, it is concluded that civil rights and human rights are not mutually exclusive, despite the competitive relationship and tension between individual liberty and public security – which is particularly emphasized in a pandemic situation. On the contrary, they complement each other and are prerequisites for each other. This path points to the possibilities of achieving a balance between them, and thus to the possibilities of overcoming the crisis caused by the pandemic. © 2021 Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu – Institute for Social Research in Zagreb Sva prava pridržana – All rights reserved.