A decision by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court that had found the state’s quarantine order unconstitutional has been overturned.
The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled that the state’s Health Commissioner can issue quarantine orders to control the disease.
According to rule 2.13 of the February 2022 order, “whenever necessary to control the spread of a highly contagious communicable disease, the State Health Commissioner may issue and/or order the local health authority to issue isolation and/or quarantine orders, consistent with due legal process, to all those persons that the State Health Commissioner deems appropriate.”
According to the state order, isolation settings can include one’s own home, a general hospital or “other residential or temporary housing,” depending on what the health agency issuing the order deems “appropriate.” The regulation also allows the health agency to “as appropriate, coordinate with local law enforcement to ensure that such person complies with the order.”
“Rule 2.13 is a red flag that underscores the government’s persistent authoritarian approach, which is a holdover from the pandemic,” plaintiff and New York state senator George Borrello said in a statement.
This ruling follows the filing of a lawsuit against Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Health over Covid-19 quarantine restrictions that the plaintiffs argued violated their constitutional rights and the separation of powers
Brownstone Institute attorney Bobby Ann Cox laid out the fundamental problems with New York State’s draconian law in stark terms.
🚨 NEW — New York Court of Appeals reinstates Gov. Kathy Hochul’s power to enforce quarantine camps
“It allows the Department of Health to pick and choose which New Yorkers they can lock down or shut down without any proof that you’re sick, without any proof that you’ve been exposed to a contagious… pic.twitter.com/2jukPhBiRn
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) November 22, 2023
“It allows the Department of Health to choose which New Yorkers they can lock up or lock up without any proof that you’re sick, without any proof that you’ve been exposed to a communicable disease,” he said. “There’s no time limit on how long they can lock you up or lock you up for days, weeks or months. There’s no location restrictions. They can put you in any facility they want… And then once they whether you’re in or out of quarantine, there’s no procedure in that regulation that says how you can get out of quarantine once you’re in it.”
Harmeet Dhillon, a constitutional rights lawyer, criticized the court’s decision.
This is actually what courts across America ruled in over a dozen cases I litigated in the early to mid-Covid era. We won three religious liberties cases at SCOTUS via @Liberty_Ctr and helped @realDailyWire defeat a corporate vaccine mandate, but the courts approved fascism daily… https://t.co/USF5nElep0
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 22
“This is actually what courts across America ruled in over a dozen cases I litigated in early and mid-Covid. We won three religious liberties cases at SCOTUS through @Liberty_Ctr and helped @realDailyWire to defeat a corporate vaccine mandate, but the courts approved daily fascism apart from those victories,” he wrote. “They used their power to close schools, shops, hairdressers, beaches. We were prevented from seeing our elders while they were locked in death traps. They let loving parents visit their disabled adult children alone. We could not marry with family witnesses. Large families were forbidden to pray together. Dreams and lives were crushed by the heavy fist of the state. A generation of children will suffer as human sacrifices at the will of scared, old judges and callous and evil leaders.”
“It’s time for SCOTUS to step up and overturn Jacobson v Massachusetts, an outdated decision that allows the violation of our fundamental human and civil rights at the national level as happened in COVID and will surely happen again the next time malevolent actors want to manipulating a gullible and edgy population,” he added. “We must not let this happen again and this authoritarian decree must be reversed at the ballot box in every state and territory of the nation.”
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the following about quarantines or “confinements”:
These face-to-face quarantine measures, which restrict the movement of free people, are a violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[xii] The Declaration was adopted in 1948 in “recognition of the inherent dignity and equal inalienable rights of all members of the human family”.[xiii] Some of the enumerated rights that are violated by quarantine orders are the right to: liberty,[xiv] freedom of movement,[xv] freedom of religion in community with others,[xvi] freedom of peaceful assembly and association,[xvii] work and protection against unemployment,[xviii] education,[xix] and participate freely in the community.[xx] However, while quarantines may violate these rights, the UN has said that in response to serious public health threats to the “life of a nation”, human rights law allows some rights to be limited. These restrictions, however, must be justified on a legal basis as strictly necessary.
Johns Hopkins University researchers have concluded that the lockdowns did little to reduce deaths from COVID, but had “devastating effects” on economies and caused social upheaval.
The study, titled “A literature review and meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality,” said lockdowns in Europe and the United States reduced deaths from COVID-19 by just 0.2 per cent.
Shelter-in-place orders were also ineffective, reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9%, the study found.
“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limited gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote in the report.
The study concluded that the lockdowns “are ill-founded and should be rejected as an instrument of pandemic policy”.
“They have helped reduce economic activity, increase unemployment, reduce schooling, cause political unrest, contribute to domestic violence and undermine liberal democracy,” the report said.
In addition, nearly everyone in the United States was exposed to SARS-CoV-2 by the end of 2022, according to infection-induced seroprevalence data, despite vaccination, masks, or lockdowns. Thus, the characterization of lockdowns as “strictly necessary” is extremely problematic, if not fallacious.
The plaintiffs had initially won their case against the Hochul administration, but New York Attorney General Letitia James filed an appeal to overturn the ruling.
Borello Et Al vs NYS by Kyle Becker on Scribd
But the court ruled that the plaintiffs “lacked standing” in their case.
The plaintiffs, including Sen. George Borello, issued a statement revealing that he and the other plaintiffs in the action intend to appeal the verdict.
“We are deeply disappointed by the Appellate Division’s decision in favor of the Hochul administration in Borrello, Lawler, Tague, Uniting NYS v. Hochul The court did not address the merits of the case that were outlined by Judge Ploetz in his original decision. Instead, they reversed and dismissed the embarrassing case on a technicality, claiming that we, the petitioners, somehow lacked standing to file the case in the first place.
We strongly disagree with their decision and are concerned about the widespread implications of this erroneous decision. Not only have they paved the way for Hochul and his Department of Health to reissue this odious Rule, they have set a precedent to prevent citizens from rightfully challenging government overreach in the courts and thereby in effect, they have unconstitutionally empowered the executive branch for policy-making excess, a decision that could open the door to further abuses of power.
In light of Governor Hochul’s other excesses in the daily lives of New Yorkers, including her push to ban gas stoves, her “housing” plan that would eliminate local zoning, and her excessive mask mandates for children , to name a few, our concerns are well justified.
This has been a “David vs. Goliath” fight from the beginning on many levels, so it’s no wonder the state, with its unlimited resources, has pulled off a victory this round. We will never stop fighting for New Yorkers against government overreach. Therefore, we will appeal this calamitous decision to the Court of Appeals, our state’s highest court, which is a court of constitutional integrity, and we are confident that justice will be served for New Yorkers.”
Attorney Bobbie Anne Cox had filed the lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York Department of Health in 2022. She also issued a statement criticizing the court decision.
“What the Appellate Division court is saying in reversing the lower court and then dismissing our case for lack of standing is that they believe that Senator George Borrello, Representative Chris Tague, Congressman Mike Lawler and the group of citizens Uniting NYS did not have the right to file this lawsuit last year against the governor and her DOH for their hateful regulation of “isolation and quarantine procedures”.
Why not? Because according to this court, my plaintiffs were not harmed by the regulation. Why not? Because the court seems to imply that the only person entitled to sue is someone who has been forcibly confined to their home against their will, or torn from their home, taken from their loved ones, and thrown into a detention center quarantine, installation. , institution, camp, etc. (choose your noun, it doesn’t matter).
The court hints that apparently only that person would be hurt. Not my suitors. The reason their “logic” is flawed is because we sued under the separation of powers doctrine, arguing that the governor and his DOH did not have the constitutional authority to make this horrible regulation in the first place .
In other words, in short, my legislators-plaintiffs were injured because Hochul and his DOH (Executive Branch) stole the legislators’ power to make law (Legislative Branch) when they created the quarantine regulation that was a law ( despite the DOH calling it a regulation). The trial court gave us the correct decision last summer and struck down the regulation for that exact reason, among others.
The Covid lockdowns were the biggest affront to constitutional rights in America since the Japanese internment camps during World War II. The Supreme Court should bury this law in the history books and issue the admonition “never again.”
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