Parliament Passes Law to Remove Legal Frailty of Coronavirus Measures
Bratislava, October 14 (TASR) – The Slovak Parliament on Wednesday approved Health Ministry-sponsored legislation designed to tackle the legal frailty of the Public Health Authority’s anti-coronavirus measures.
The bill was discussed in fast-tracked mode after the Prosecutor-General’s Office last week pointed to the Public Health Authority’s lack of authorisation to issue such measures.
The new legislation stipulates that if it’s necessary to order individual health measures for the entire country, part of it or a group of people, they should be imposed by a decree of the Health Ministry or the public health authorities. Hitherto-released measures should remain in force 15 days after this bill enters into force if they aren’t revoked by the authority that released them.
In addition, the legislation “rules out the right to claim for losses and profits due to measures concerning an indefinite number of people with respect to this law”.
The Public Health Authority will have the right to impose on individual facilities the obligation to condition entry to facilities with collection of their personal data in order to facilitate possible tracing of contacts. Entry to Slovakia could be conditioned under the same rule if this is ordered by the Public Health Authority.
Also, the public health authorities will be entitled to order the use of preventive and other protective items, the placing of people entering Slovakia into quarantine, the adoption of hygiene measures by employers, etc.
