Threshold of justification of emergency regulations: On coherentism requirement for the justification of measures adopted in the Czech Republic during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The article deals with justification of generally binding legal acts as part of a state governed by the rule of law. The “state of exception” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic adds a new dimension to the issue of justification. The practice prevailing in the Czech Republic in 2020 did not reflect even the minimum requirements for justifying emergency measures, which brought on problems both in the practical application of the adopted measures and in their subsequent judicial review. The article attempts to find an appropriate level of justification, referred to as the threshold of justification and based on the coherentist theory of epistemic justification. The basis of such justification lies in the idea that individual grounds for justification can be found in the explanatory reports of the legislation, on the one hand, and in various pieces of relevant information available to the addressees, on the other hand. All these reasons should form a coherent whole and they should ultimately legitimize restrictions on the freedom of individuals. The final part of the article describes the importance of the threshold of justification for the review of proportionality and even reasonableness of the law.