title: [Individual rights vs public health in the fight against contagious diseases: proposals to improve the current legal framework].
abstract: The public health protection constitutional mandate requires public powers to protect the population from contagious diseases. This requires a legal framework that both protects public health effectively and respects individual rights and freedoms that could be undermined by the public administrations. This article analyses, from a legal perspective, the current legal framework regulating the adoption of health measures to protect public health against contagious diseases. It argues that current regulations generate legal uncertainty on the basis of the wide range of discretionary powers they give to the public administration and the lack of provisions for limiting these powers. As a result, the guarantee mechanisms (primarily judicial consent) only weakly protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens affected by health measures. To conclude, the article proposes several amendments to improve public health regulations related to contagious diseases. The purpose is to render a legal framework that offers more legal certainty, in which it is possible to protect individual rights and freedoms when measures are adopted, without sacrificing the effective protection of public health.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Derecho Público, Área de Derecho Administrativo, Universidad de Lleida, Lleida, España. Electronic address: lsalamero@dpub.udl.cat.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Salamero Teixidó
mesh_terms: D002961:Civil Rights; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health
keywords: Autorización judicial; Contagious disease; Derechos y libertades individuales; Enfermedad contagiosa; Epidemia; Epidemic; Individual rights and freedoms; Judicial consent; Public health; Salud pública