Claim: UK Coronavirus Bill (HC Bill 122) means "bad things"

[Rory]

A few people I know have told me that the UK government has introduced a new bill which gives them the power to do "bad things" such as:



The petition he's referring to currently has 154,000 signatures. The new measures are summarised there as follows:

Forced detention and isolation can be of anyone, including children, and for any amount of time.

Authorities can FORCEABLY take biological samples from your body. Your body becomes the property of the state.

There’s no clear access to legal rights from as-yet unidentified isolation facilities.

Powers last up to 2 years, with reviews every 6 mths

Lockdown powers could prevent protests against measures.

State surveillance safeguards weakened.

Protections from forced detainment and treatment under Mental Health Act lowered.

Cremations can be enforced against personal and religious wishes.

Changes to the court system. Registration of deaths.

No inquests into suspicious deaths! No requirement for any medical certification for burials or cremations!

It also indeminfies the health service should they fail for what ever reason to provide care.

The most frightening part. Only one medical 'officer' is required to sign off COMPULSORY TREATMENT ORDER which means... in the real world you can be forced to accept medication. Or held down and injected with whatever is seen fit. THAT is the biggest and worst threat to your own freedoms.

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliam...-bill-122-rushed-through-parliament-last-week

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Helpfully, the petition page links to the actual bill:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0122/cbill_2019-20210122_en_1.htm

I'll see if I can have a look through tomorrow and work out what's factual or not.

 

[deirdre]

I'll see if I can have a look through tomorrow

here is a link to "explanatory notes" about what it is that is easier to read. so far I do see 2 years, can be extended or ended early.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0122/en/20122en.pdf

7 These are extraordinary measures that do not apply in normal circumstances. For this reason, the legislation will be time-limited for two years and it is neither necessary nor appropriate for all of these measures come into force immediately. Instead, many of the measures in this Bill can be commenced from area to area and time to time, so as to ensure that the need to protect the
public’s health can be aligned with the need to safeguard individuals’ rights. These measures can subsequently be suspended and then later reactivated, if circumstances permit, over the lifetime of the Act.
8 The lifetime of the Act can itself be ended early, if the best available scientific evidence supports a policy decision that these powers are no longer needed. It is also possible to extend the lifetime of the Act for a further temporary period, again if it is prudent to do so.
9 This facility can be adjusted so that early termination (‘sunsetting’) can apply to some provisions; and further extension can be applied to others. The aim is to make sure that these powers can be used both effectively and proportionately

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[DavidB66]

The 'Bill' is already law, as the Coronavirus Act 2020. The Bill was introduced to Parliament on 19 March and received the Royal Assent (the final stage in the process) on 25 March. As pointed out in the guidance notes, different parts of the Act may be brought into effect at different times, and some may not be brought into effect at all. There is another guide, by a law firm, here:
https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/uk-coronavirus-act-overview/

 

[deirdre]

The most frightening part. Only one medical 'officer' is required to sign off COMPULSORY TREATMENT ORDER which means... in the real world you can be forced to accept medication. Or held down and injected with whatever is seen fit. THAT is the biggest and worst threat to your own freedoms.

I cant imagine it would be hard in mental health situations (which this is), to get a second doctor to sign off. the only change is if it is impractical to get a second mental health report, then one is ok in this emergency situation. Don't act crazy and you should be ok.

d. Enabling a mental health officer (MHO) to apply for a Compulsory Treatment Order (CTO) under section 63 of the 2003 Act founded on only one mental health report, provided the MHO considers that it would be impractical or involve delay to obtain two mental health reports.

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372 Compulsory medical treatment, including vaccination is excluded from the ambit of the regulation-making powers.

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[deirdre]

Cremations can be enforced against personal and religious wishes.

sounds reasonable to me: They are saying if bodies start stacking up and if there is no safe place to store them, then cremation might have to happen against wishes.

442 Personal choice for body disposal will be respected as far as possible, however, only where there is no suitable alternative (for example if safe storage limits were likely to be breached and out of area alternatives were not available), the power to direct may be used to direct whether a body is buried or cremated. In this respect it has been necessary to disapply section 46(3) of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 which prohibits cremation against the wishes of the deceased. Similar provisions are disapplied in Northern Ireland. Scotland’s legislation only requires due regard to be had to the deceased’s wishes so no equivalent dis-application is needed.
443

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[Mendel]

I exect that's the anti-anti-vaxxer bill: clearly, it is there to apply to coronavirus measures, and the only reason to not want to comply with the law is if you want to walk around and potentially infect other people. There needs to be a legal basis for the government to not let you do that, and this bill is it.

The opposition can be reasonably based on these lines of thought:
a) it's my right to infect others (but it is others' right to not get infected by you)
b) the government can achieve this end through other means (how?)
c) the government can abuse this bill (given that it is tied to the coronavirus pandemic, I doubt that would pass judicial review)

It is a difficult discussion to weigh these restrictions against our civil liberties guaranteed in the constitution, but overstating cases does not serve that. Nobody becomes "property of the state" (don't see slavery in there), nobody is denied access to the judiciary (there are limits on how long you can be detained for assessment, for example, measured in hours), and the usual procedures still apply; and yes, your decomposing body can be cremated if a burial is not possible and it becomes a health risk to those still alive.

It does not help the discussion if you assert your right to infect others, and the right for your corpse to rot if it can't be buried; which is what this petition effectively does. The government gets rights it does not usually have, but they are tied to a specific purpose (which the petition takes pain to mention as little as possible), and the democratic judiciary is our guarantee that they will only be used for that purpose.

If there is discussion, it ought to be about whether the measurements are reasonable and effective and proportional to the that; that makes sense; but that petition does nothing to bring that about.

If you're an anti-vaxxer (or believe this pandemic is a hoax), you will oppose this unconditionally, but the majority overrules you because it values its health, and rightfully so. I see nothing wrong with that.

 

[deirdre]

I exect that's the anti-anti-vaxxer bill: clearly, it is there to apply to coronavirus measures, and the only reason to not want to comply with the law is if you want to walk around and potentially infect other people. There needs to be a legal basis for the government to not let you do that, and this bill is it.

did you see in the bill somewhere where it says you mandatorily would need to get the covid vaccine? i did not read it all obviously but I did not see anything saying that.

 

[Mendel]

@deirdre good point!

https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-21/coronavirus/documents.html is the official collection of documents, which includes the bill as a single PDF file, and also other documents, such as the impact assessment from the deaprtment of health and social care. It is really nice because it lays out the problems the bill is meant to address, and weighs the options and their potential impact for each measure contained in the bill, im a mostly non-legal language.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...f-impacts/coronavirus-bill-summary-of-impacts

Rationale for intervention
During a severe coronavirus outbreak, it is anticipated that there will be a surge in demand for healthcare services, including mental health services. There will also likely be higher staff absence rates than usual, particularly during the peak weeks. It is thought likely that organisations will find it very difficult to comply with a number of procedural requirements set out in the Mental Health Act 1983. The consequences of this would include meaning that patients needing mental health treatment in an inpatient setting would be less likely to receive it, particularly in those cases where a person is so unwell he or she is not able or willing to consent formally to treatment. It would also mean that people would have to wait for an extended period before receiving mental health assessments, and be unwell and untreated for longer. These waits would include those for assessments following detentions made by the police under the Act, which would be a burden on police time, and could result in an increase of the number of people being assessed within police stations.

In order to support these services and give them the flexibility they will need to continue treating patients during a severe coronavirus outbreak, a number of temporary amendments to the Mental Health Act 1983 are proposed. These include allowing fewer health care professionals needed to undertake certain functions; and extension or removal of time limits relating to detention and transfer of patients.

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In effect, it becomes easier to declare someone mentally unwell, and then treat them without their consent. I did not see a specific provision for mandatory vaccnations.

For example, in schedule 9 (Mental Health, mScotland) we find:

Administration of medicine
10 Medicine (as defined in section 240) may be given to a patient without a certificate under section 241(1) if the patient’s responsible medical officer
has requested a certificate from a designated medical practitioner but the 15 practitioner has not yet issued a certificate (and a certificate has not been refused).

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Without knowing section 240 , this looks scary.
It is also possible that the authors of the petition confused the treatment of mental health conditions with treatment of the virus, if they read these provisions out of context.

 

[deirdre]

It is also possible that the authors of the petition confused the treatment of mental health conditions with treatment of the virus, if they read these provisions out of context.

or they might have mental health conditions that might get them involuntarily hospitalized and medicated. the bill looks pretty rational, under these specific circumstances -ie. possible severe pandemic- to me.

but in fairness, I must say that I can imagine the younger generations especially are kinda shocked the gov cant just snap their fingers and magic fairies produce more health personnel and equipment. unless you study history (or watch documentaries), business etc or have lived through non-plush times, I can understand such people not understanding the real life logistics of a severe pandemic and thinking this is just a 'government-power-grab'.

I do watch documentaries, but really the only time I couldn't get what I wanted when I wanted, is like Christmas time when all the Nintendo 64s were on back order. (and even then I got one for the kid by Christmas somehow miraculously, but lots of people didnt). And the only time I couldn't go anywhere or do whatever I wanted is during severe snowstorms. So this pandemic situation is a bit surreal, to a lot of people I bet.

 

[Mendel]

I just looked at the German legal situation. We already had the power to quarantine for at least 20 years, but we did add the power for people other than doctors to treat you (limited until January 1st). We don't have the mental health provisions, presumably because we're not that short-staffed? or aren't as thorough as the UK?

What we do have (and already had) is the requirement for doctors to report infectious diseases (which is a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality), and powers for the health office to ask you about your contacts, and to investigate infections. (e.g. they could investigate a restaurant if they thought an infection spread from there). I don't recall seeing any provisions in the British bill that help with contact tracing.

We did give the federal government the power to regulate health supplies when there's an epidemic (e.g. claim and distribute medications, masks etc.), and that's limited to a year or when the parliament declares the epidemic over. That is another thing I didn't see in the British bill.