The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has agreed not to authorize the new measure requested by the regional government to try to control Covid-19 infections, so the curfew cannot be imposed on any island.
The Executive intended to restrict night mobility on the islands at level 3 and 4 of health alert, something that for the moment was going to affect the island of Tenerife. However, despite the fact that the Prosecutor's Office spoke in favor, the TSJC has rejected this request.
In its order, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber concludes that the restriction of freedom of movement to prevent binge drinking is not "proportionate in public spaces.”
The judicial body recalls that it already warned in its resolution of May 9 - confirmed by the Supreme Court - that if what is intended "is to avoid certain behaviors that may entail a greater risk to public health because it is considered that they usually, by social custom, develop at night”, the public authorities have “other less harmful legal instruments of intervention”, such as the Law on Classified Activities and Public Shows or the Law on the Protection of Citizen Security.
In addition, the Court maintains that “it has not been proven that the situation in which the epidemic finds itself represents such a serious and imminent danger to health and care capacity that justifies this exception, there being ordinary means less restrictive of fundamental rights to resolve the problem that arises in such a way that individual responsibility and self-control of people is the reason for compliance with the measures for their own interest and for their duty not to harm others, thus avoiding the rebound effect generated by the lifting of the prohibitions imposed so drastically that, when they disappear, it is forgotten that a fatality has not ended that, like others, it seems that we must carry for life if Medicine does not remedy it.”
The resolution is subject to appeal before the Supreme Court, although this body has already rejected similar measures proposed by other communities and by the Canary Islands Government itself, as the order recalls.
