Sir, Constitutional lawyers have said that mandatory hotel quarantine is allowable under the Constitution ("Mandatory quarantine allowable under the Constitution", Opinion & Analysis, February 4th).
Have those lawyers considered Article 42 of the Constitution and its provisions about children’s rights? It provides that, “the State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights”.
Unicef mirrors Article 42 when it says that in relation to policies and decisions about the isolation and quarantine of children that the child’s best interest is a primary consideration. It warns about the potential for mandatory hotel quarantine to lead to separation of families.
Hard cases often determine whether legislation is constitutional or not.
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There was one such case in New Zealand involving a bereaved mother and children who had travelled from Australia to see the body of the father who had died suddenly.
They were refused, and while their case was being appealed, they escaped from the hotel, having found a window with a broken lock. The response by the New Zealand authorities included a hunt for the family, the arrest of mother and children, one of the children being put on trial alongside the mother, and the mother being sentenced to two weeks in prison.
How would our courts respond to a case like this?
I foresee many potential situations where issues will arise from mandatory hotel quarantine that raise the rights of children, including their detention, and also if children are separated from parents while the parents are in mandatory hotel quarantine.
I’m not a constitutional expert but I would urge our legislators in the Dáil and Seanad to at least consider the rights of children and how best to protect them if mandatory hotel quarantine is brought into law. – Yours, etc,
Cllr JOANNA TUFFY,
(Labour),
Lucan,
Co Dublin