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Bracketing Liberty for the Public Health Cause

The idea of liberty, which falls within the broader concept of right, enjoys a paramount position in the present world order. Invariably, almost all the Nation-States have incorporated this natural and inalienable interest in their basic documents (mostly Constitutions) and has legally recognized and sanctified the same in its maximum possible extent. Liberty is a concept which has been discussed and developed by numerous legal philosophers over the ages, starting with Aristotle. However, it can be noted that the expansion of the horizons of the concept of liberty is constant and exponential in the latter half of the twentieth century. This is also fueled by the postmodernism idea of ‘deconstruction’ that has demolished many of the existing structures. Even then, liberty cannot be absolute and the limits of the same are to be carefully determined and the Nation-States appreciate this with extra care and caution. The grounds adopted by the Nation-States for curtailing liberty has been compartmentalised under a few general heads. However, recent times have witnessed the relevance of a less invoked reasoning for curtailing liberty, i.e., preservation of public health. It can be observed that the constant improvement of the concept of liberty was not much challenged by any serious restrictions on this scale in the recent past. This paper tries to analyse the reasonableness of the ground of “public health” as a tool for restricting liberty. The legality of restricting liberty and its manifestations on the blanket justification of preservation of public health is an important concern. In the present situation, with the outbreak of a pandemic, the Nation-States tries to justify the curtailment of liberty by pointing out the fact that there is an absence of precedence of a similar magnitude compelling the State to limit the liberty on a massive scale in terms of duration and location. The paper also examines the need for a comprehensive legislative platform with respect to the curtailment of liberty for similar future situations.