Fundamental Rights and Freedoms

The Covid-19 pandemic has provoked both in Italy and in Germany wide debates among scientists, scholars of multiple disciplines and public opinion. Of course, politics has played a fundamental role in the management of the health emergency: in Italy, “collective” health has been protected through the adoption of a very wide range of regulatory acts of different nature, not always suitable to guarantee a unitary protection. In Germany, the emergency crisis has been (more) successfully managed, with the sole exception of some problems that have emerged in the coordination between the Bund and Länder in the fight against the virus. This work will analyse, from a comparative point of view, the relationship between the legislative power and science in defining policies to combat the health emergency, focusing on the impact of such policies on the academic context.

In the summer term of 2020, teaching at German universities was shifted to the digital space. In the winter term 2020/21, distance learning will continue at many universities, at least in part, especially for courses with a high number of participants. It is questionable to what extent compulsory digital teaching will interfere with the freedom of teaching and whether digital teaching can be demanded by the faculty management in accordance with fundamental rights in the exceptional situation caused by the pandemic and beyond the crisis.

In light of the numerous restrictive measures adopted in Italy, as in many other countries, to contain the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, the authors examine the terms with which the use of the “App Immuni” could be qualified as a legitimate condition for carrying out activities at risk of infection. Digital contact tracing could give greater effectiveness to the measures taken to contain the epidemic and, therefore, lead to a better calibration of the limitations to personal freedoms. In this perspective, the authors’ attention is focused on analyzing the functioning of the app Immuni, especially in view of protecting personal data and in light of the analysis of the relevant European standards, also analyzed through the prism of the principle of proportionality.

The 50/2009 directive has created a fast tracking admission system for highly qualified third-countries workers, but after more than ten years from its adoption, it has not led to the expected results. The need of a reform appeared immediately clear. Germany has been the only European State to exploit the potential of the Blue Card. The data analysis shows that a key role was played by the German university system and the ability to attract international students. Most Blue Card owners, in fact, entered the Country with a student visa and later turned it into a different residence permit.

This paper analyzes the decree n. 634/2020, with which the President of the First Chamber of the Lombardy Regional Administrative Court provisionally suspended the part of the Lombardy regional Ordinance n. 528 in the part in which it authorizes retail trade operators to home delivery any kind of goods, because of its prejudicial effects to workers health.

The President of the Third Section of the Council of State - by means of the decree no. 2028 of April 17th, 2020 - declared the inadmissibility of the precautionary appeal filed against decree no. 122/2020, according to which the President of the First Section of the Regional Administrative Court of Sardinia did not grant the suspension of the effects of two urgent ordinances issued by the Mayor of Pula (Cagliari) and which impose additional restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of individuals, going beyond those provided for at the national and regional level.

With the judgment of 15 April 2020, 1 BvR 828/20, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the municipal administration of the town of Giessen must re-evaluate the request of authorization to hold a demonstration in a public place, presented by a German citizen and already rejected by the same administration, in light of the considerations on the exercise of administrative discretion carried out by the Court itself. According to the Constitutional Judge, in cases such as this, administrative discretion must in fact be exercised primarily in order to protect rights which, otherwise, an administrative provision could compress to the point of making it impossible to exercise.