Legitimacy Deficits of Austrian Legal COVID-19 Measures. From Emergency Action to Economic Crisis Governance
Published in 9 Law and Economics Yearly Review 2020, 147–161
14 Pages Posted: 7 Sep 2021 Last revised: 7 Feb 2022
Date Written: February 24, 2020
Abstract
The Austrian Government reacted fast and successful to the COVID-19 Crisis in March 2020. The following paper analysis the legal and structural challenges of this response. As a state of emergency was not declared officially the Austrian Constitution had to be fully applied. Not only questions of legality of the governmental measures, especially the compliance with the constitutional principle of the rule of law, arose, but also a reluctance towards transparency and accountability could be observed. The paper looks out for the lacks of legitimacy in the governmental measures including emergency action as well as the economic crisis governance.
Keywords: Austria, Democracy, Rule of Law, COVID-19, Human Rights, Pandemic, Constitutional Law, State of Emergency
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