Coronavirus, Hotel Quarantine Regulations (England): A Rule of Law

The fast-tracking of the Regulations also meant that individuals and businesses affected by hotel quarantine had less than one working day to get to grips with the detail of the scheme, raising several Rule of Law concerns surrounding the accessibility and foreseeability of the law. [...] In particular, there should be scrutiny of the necessity and proportionality of: the strictness of the quarantine measures, which may amount to a deprivation of liberty under Article 5 ECHR and/or common law imprisonment; the power of entry granted to the police; the powers to detain and search travellers; the cost of a stay in a quarantine hotel (if charging for quarantine is intra vires). [...] The Government should explain what necessitated the breach of the 21-day rule, when there was more than a two-week delay between the announcement of the policy and the drafting of the Regulations. [...] On the face of it, this provision is within the powers granted by the Public Health Act, as section 45F(2)(f) of the Act allows the Secretary of State to make regulations which “permit or prohibit the levy of charges”. [...] In determining whether there has been a deprivation of liberty under Article 5, account must be taken of “a whole range” of criteria such as the “type, duration, effects and manner of implementation of the measure in question.”54 Relevant factors include whether a person is able to leave the restricted area, the degree of supervision and control over the person’s movements, the extent of isolation.