A court in The Netherlands has ordered that a curfew put in place to stop the spread of Covid-19 should be lifted. In the summation, the judge ruled that the legal order that had been put in place had been misused.
The curfew, which starts at 9pm every night and ends at 4.30 in the morning, had sparked riots earlier this month after it was first imposed. Rioters attack police with bottles, bricks and fireworks and looted several shops. On the worst night of rioting, 180 people were arrested. While incidents took place across The Netherlands, most of the trouble was found in the Hague, Rotterdam and the capital Amsterdam. Some rioters even decided to attack hospitals that were treating Covid-19 patients. It was the worst civil disturbance The Netherlands had seen for several decades.
The district judge overlooking the lockdown case said:
"The curfew is based on a law for emergency situations, where there is no time for debate with parliament. There was no such pressing need in this case. Far-reaching measures such as these need to be based on proper laws. Therefore, the use of this law to impose curfew is not legitimate."
The legal action was brought forward by a group called 'VirusTruth' which is backed by several far-right politicians and has been accused of making false and misleading statements about both the pandemic and the vaccination program. Some supporters of the organisation have even attempted to say that the virus is a hoax. None of these conspiracy theories have any basis in truth.
The emergency powers on which the curfew was enacted are designed for situations such as a dyke bursting, which cause widespread flooding. However, the judge decided that the spread of Covid-19 did not pose the same level of danger.
The curfew had been added on top of other lockdown measures in order to stop a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in the country over winter. The Netherlands has seen 1 million cases of Covid-19 being officially detected and over 15,000 people have died from the disease.
It is now feared that if restrictions are eschewed, there could be another spike in cases and many more people could lose their lives. The vaccination program in the Netherlands has barely begun, meaning that most people are still susceptible to infection from the virus, and risk spreading it on to others.
The Dutch government will now attempt to appeal the ruling and have the restrictions put back in place in the shortest time possible.
[h/t: Daily Mail]
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