The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 (Reg 6) and the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (Reg 8) both provide in identical wording that ‘During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.’ Both also enumerate thirteen exceptions (‘reasonable excuses’) to the rule. These are the restrictions widely referred to as the ‘lockdown.’ There is a question at the moment about whether they are so invasive as to be unlawful. This two-part post briefly reviews the legal basis for the confinement. I argue that the lockdown is lawful.
The Statutory Framework
The recently adopted Coronavirus Act 2020 does not confer new powers on UK and Welsh ministers to impose a lockdown on the people of England and Wales. It does confer such powers on Northern Ireland (specifically, the Northern Ireland Department of Health) in Schedule…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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