Check out Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov’s new essay on how legislatures have been challenged on a global scale by COVID-19, published by the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL).
The author explains his ambitious multidisciplinary research project to conduct an extensive and comprehensive empirical study of how legislatures around the world have responded to these challenges.
One of the surprising findings was that there was no apparent relation between the severity of the disease in a certain country and the decision to close parliament or limit its operation. Our findings indicate that there is a real danger that parliaments will be closed or restricted due to a disproportionate response, either due to excessive risk perceptions that lead to unintentional overreaction, or due to intentional exploitation of the crisis as an excuse to silence parliaments.
Dr Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov is a Senior Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law and Co-Chair of the Israeli Association of Legislation.
Read more here.