RPT: REVIEW - Governments Across Globe Expect Avalanche Of Legal Complaints After COVID-19 Pandemic

BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2020) Many governments, national and local politicians, administrations and companies are going to face a storm of complaints filed by citizens, doctors, businesses and organizations to scrutinize their handling of the coronavirus crisis, which laid bare problems with protective equipment stockpiles and hospital readiness and also raised human rights concerns.

In Italy, tens of complaints have been filed, and the public prosecutor's office in the northern city of Bergamo in the worst-hit region of Lombardy will question the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte over its management of the epidemic, which has killed more than 34,000 people on the peninsula.

In Belgium, which has registered 9,600 deaths, 30 Belgians have required Minister of Security and the Interior Pieter De Crem to stand trial because they believe that the measures taken as part of the fight against the coronavirus run counter to the European Convention on Human Rights.

In Spain, which accounts for 27,000 coronavirus-related deaths, families of COVID-19 victims sue Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for "homicide," blaming his government for negligence and late action amid the pandemic that has claimed the lives of their loved ones.

In France, dozens of complaints have been filed too, and more are expected. Paris Public Prosecutor Remy Heitz announced on Tuesday that he had opened a criminal investigation into France's handling of the coronavirus.

With over 29,000 fatalities, France has the fifth highest COVID-19 death toll in the world. Like many other countries in the world, it suffered from the lack of face masks for ordinary people and shortages of protective equipment in hospitals at the onset of the pandemic. People took the crowded Paris metro without masks for weeks, making the pandemic explode in the capital region.

Then-Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said at the beginning of the pandemic that the novel coronavirus is not worse than flu, but had to backtrack on this later. Her successor, Olivier Veran, also hesitated over the necessity of wearing face masks, though the cabinet later made their use compulsory in transport and confined places.

Some 80 complaints have been filed against members of the government before the Court of Justice of the Republic, the only body empowered to try ministers in office. They target in particular Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and the ministers of health, interior, labor and justice.

In Belgium, there was an ambiguity around face mask stocks. Health Minister Maggie De Block said that a great reserve of face masks, kept in military barracks, had been destroyed before the pandemic because they reached their expiration date. Later, an officer in charge of keeping the masks said that that the burning of masks had started in 2015 "to make room for migrants."

The pandemic will likely trigger legal battles not only in Europe but also across the world.

"You see the high number of complaints in European member states, but knowing the level of judicial litigation in the USA, already very high compared to Europe in normal times, and the heightened political war between supporters of [US President Donald] Trump and [his rival Joe] Biden, the number of lawsuits to be expected against the president but also against the governors or city mayors, at all levels in the country, will be extremely high and will take years to complete," Brussels-based lawyer Frederic Crombreucq told Sputnik.

According to the expert, in most countries these are parliamentary committees that will deal with scrutinizing the coronavirus response.

But even in legal claims, it will still be very difficult to ascertain that "involuntary homicide" or "endangerment of the lives of others" and obstruction of assistance did take place.

"In most cases, the complaint mentions 'homicide,' but sometimes, they mention manslaughter or endangerment of the life of others, willingly or not. These are very strong accusations, but it will be very difficult to prove anything punishable; as most deciders have 'done their best,' even if the result was not brilliant, and the dilution of responsibilities over many people make it very difficult for courts to accept. In many cases, the procedure will be quickly defused and not go to the level of a trial," Crombreucq explained.

Gilles Lebreton, a European Parliament member from France's right-wing National Rally and professor of law at the University of Le Havre, says that ministers, even if found guilty, are exempt from punishment.

To support his opinion, he cited a scandal around France's National Centre for Blood Transfusion that infected haemophiliacs with HIV through transfusions of contaminated blood in 1984-1985. In the 1990s, former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius was acquitted, while his health minister was found guilty, but received no sentence. The lawmaker described that story as "one of the most serious health scandals" in France.

"The Court of Justice of the Republic is a jurisdiction made up of parliamentarians, and the party of the president, LREM, is in the majority: Mr Edouard Philippe and his ministers can sleep easy," Lebreton told Sputnik.

Benjamin Biard, a political analyst at Belgium's Centre of Socio-Political Research and Information, attributed the avalanche of complaints to a "crisis of representative democracy" and loss of confidence in the functioning of state institutes.

"We saw significant demonstrations of protest against the COVID-19 measures which limit the freedom of citizens. In Spain, VOX and the PP [People's Party] demonstrated in the streets against the containment policy deemed excessive. Same thing in Italy where the Lega protests in the street or in Germany where the demonstrations are organized by the hard right and by the hard left," Biard told Sputnik.

These protests, however, will not necessarily entail a drop in politicians' ratings, the analyst noted.

"A recent study in the European Journal of Political Science concluded, however, that this backdrop did not affect the popularity of prime ministers or presidents, depending on the country," Biard said.

The analyst concluded by giving an example of popularity ratings of Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes and France's Philippe whose popularity ratings were either on the same level or increasing.