Quarantine and the law (What courts can and cannot do in a pandemic lockdown)

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 Quarantine and the law (What courts can and cannot do in a pandemic lockdown)

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• The 1824 US S.C. case: The Supreme Court of the US in 1824 confirmed the power of the state to enact quarantine laws, and impose health regulations. The world has experienced that many times since then, and all states have found quarantines legally justifiable to save lives.
• Nature of quarantines: The states were often needed to forcibly impose such prohibitions on movement.

1. List of diseases is long – the US CDC lists SARS, cholera, diphtheria, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, etc.
2. Quarantine is a medically-accepted method to reduce community transmission.

• Public health imperative: The plague of 1370s brought the first law on medical isolation, in European nations. Detentions began. The "trentino" was enforced – isolation for 30 days. When 30 became 40, trentino became "quarantine" (from Latin quadraginta).
• Quarantine is not isolation: Quarantine is imposed to separate and restrict movement of people who have been "exposed to" an infectious disease, but are not ill. Isolation is total separation of people (from others) who "may be infected" with communicable diseases.
• What is Indian lockdown: It is a de facto quarantine, as everything's closed. The question is whether the state can give such an order.

1. An employee of WWF who contracted HIV-AIDS in 1990 was terminated from service and detained for 64 days in quarantine-like isolation under Goa Public Health Amendment Act, 1957 (GPH).
2. But Bombay High Court (1990) found that a violation of basic human rights. Still it did not rule the isolated detention illegal.
3. It is clear that such isolations totally invade the liberty of a human being. Since the health of entire community is involved, public interest trumps individual rights. (actually both co-exist)

• The Epidemic Disease Act, 1897: This colonial law empowers the state with special powers, and inspection, segregation etc. is allowed. The 1956 amendment empowered the Central govt. to design regulations or put restrictions anywhere in India to prevent dangerous diseases from spreading. Quarantine has been used in India many times.
• Judicial review: When the WHO declared the COVID-19 as a PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern), it said that -

1. Quarantine is separate from isolation. Isolation is separation of ill/infected people from others.
2. Possible quarantine spots – hotels, single rooms, homes, etc. with a 1 metre distance possible

• CDC USA: The US CDC clarified in Rule 9 that individuals affected by quarantine can seek judicial review as per habeas corpus. An earlier 1900 order of quarantine on a Chinese citizen in US was struck down due to racial motivations (disease was bubonic plague).
• SC on prisons in India: The Indian Supreme Court suo motu took cognizance of the dangerous situation in Indian prisons (due to overcrowding) and gave instructions for isolation cells, etc. Thus, any order on quarantine is subject to judicial review.
• Summary : Any and every order on quarantine is subject to full judicial review, and even habeas corpus.

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