Remarks on the Protection of People’s Rights and Liberties in Public Emergency Situations by the Constitutional Court

Abstract

     The Constitutional Court is a judicial organization established by the spirit of the Constitution that intended to be a mechanism for oversighting the exercise of state’s authority and protecting rights and liberties in whatever circumstances. Consequently, the Constitutional Court protected people’s rights and liberties in public emergency situations based on her duties and powers provided in the Constitution. This article therefore aimed at studying the role of Constitutional Court in protecting people’s rights and liberties under public emergency situations by examining decisions of the Constitutional Court as unit of analysis.

      After analysing decisions of the Constitutional Court related to the protection of people’s rights and liberties in public emergency situations, whatever it was a ruling or an order, it found that such decisions did not only illustrate the role of the Constitutional Court in protecting rights and liberties under severe circumstances like public emergency situations but also reflected legal limitations arose from rules and procedures in submitting an application to the Constitutional Court as provided in the law on her procedures. These caused the Constitutional Court not to effectively provide constitutional protection as prescribed in the spirit of the Constitution. In this regard, it was therefore necessary to amend the Law on Procedures of the Constitutional Court and also proposed the Constitutional Court, especially each individual Justice, to change her interpretative approach by embracing 'the right-based approach'. It meant that the Constitutional Court should pay more attention to rights and liberties of people in case where the fact obviously illustrated that their fundamental rights was actually violated by the State authority during public emergency situations rather than adhere to rules and procedures provided by the law.