It is if you assume your Constitutional rights are that that any citizen intuits from a casual reading of the Bill of Rights. It suffices in this context to point out that, if you're an American, you don't live in a country that operates on that principle; we've had centuries of jurisprudence that put the Bill of Rights into actual practice, and many of the principles routinely assumed to be violating the plain meaning of the amendments were established by the framers of those amendments.
(Courts, for what it's worth, continue to function).
I agree with you, but you said this and I thought people may be interested in experiences from England about online court appearances.
> (Courts, for what it's worth, continue to function).
In England we split courts up, so we have a variety of criminal courts, courts of protection, family courts, etc.
Before Covid-19 they were all trying to "go digital", and were having mixed results. Now, because of Covid-19, they've just had to make it work somehow.
Sarah's father had a stroke. He was taken to hospital. He started to refuse to eat or drink. The doctors decided he did not have mental capacity to make that choice, and so they fitted a nasogastric tube. He told his daughter that this was wrong, and he pulled out (!!!) his tube several times. They gave him a PEG tube, and he was eventually discharged to a nursing home. He wants the medical treatment (feeding) to stop; she wants what he wants; so now they go to the court to get an order. They lost the case.
This is, of course, a very distressing case for all involved. But this woman says that the informal nature of a skype case, with people's pets wandering in and out and people talking in a casual way to each other made it worse.
There's some sense that because Sarah wasn't in the same room as the judge and the lawyers that they didn't recognise her distress.
So, court cases are going ahead, but there's some considerable adjustment needed.
Also, they're not always going ahead. Here's a case about a form of child abuse (fabricated or induced illness). It's a really serious case, and the mother risks being separated from her child (or the child risks remaining with an abusive mother). The judge decided that this isn't a case that can be heard remotely. http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/p-a-child-remote-heari...
What was perhaps acceptable as a temporary emergency measure is not acceptable as the new normal. The current measures are overly restrictive and cannot continue for two years.
And while I don't care about religion myself, I understand that religious people feel the same way about closing all churches for years. We'll also have to find less restrictive ways to control the virus while allowing the churches to reopen.
I'm not sure why you'd expect me to respond to (let alone defend) an argument that nobody is making. Clearly things will not continue exactly as they have been for two years. If the same protective needs exist 2 years from now, the courts will have adapted. The churches, for whatever it's worth to you, already have.
Regarding the courts: Ken White is a good source for what's actually happening.
My point is coronavirus will still be here in six months or two years.
So if we agree that less restrictive measures will be in place in the future, I would ask why such measures aren't also sufficient today?
I would argue that, given that this lockdown must end before we eliminate the virus, we should begin adapting and testing less restrictive measures as quickly as possible.
Your argument is specious. I said that the measures in place 2 years from now won't be the same as the ones we have now, not that things will simply be "less restrictive". Maybe they will be, maybe they won't. The reason they aren't different now is that it takes time to adapt. The reason we don't simply reduce restrictions right now is that doing so will kill people.
Not relaxing restrictions will also kill people from increased domestic violence, from depression and suicide due to business failure, unemployment, homelessness, etc, and from poor health due to inactivity.
It's always a tradeoff. And now we're seeing data showing that the virus is more widespread and less dangerous than previously believed, so it's time to reevaluate that trade.
Decisions are being made in light of the data. We'll know more in May than we did in March. As they say: in the best case, if we execute perfectly, it'll look like we never should have done anything. Your lips to God's ears! Meanwhile, the discussion here is about the Constitutionality of lockdown orders. From what I can tell, there's no serious argument about the lawfulness of orders that have actually occurred; the "debate", such as it is, is about hypothetical future orders that don't appear to be on the table anywhere.
> if we execute perfectly, it'll look like we never should have done anything
And ironically, if it turns out the virus is less dangerous than previously believed, and we actually overreacted, it will also look like we overreacted.
But I agree; I don't dispute the Constitutionality of the orders given in March, when nothing was known and it was wise to be prudent. Now, more is known and orders can be much more carefully tailored and less restrictive, as required by strict scrutiny.
The subtext of your comment, that "strict scrutiny" requires fine-grained analysis of every application of state police power, doesn't match up with my understanding of how any of this works. The reality is that almost any reasonable thing that governments do to combat C19, perhaps excepting things that are demonstrably and deliberately not viewpoint neutral, are going to be allowed.
> strict scrutiny requires fine-grained analysis of every application of state police power
That's what strict scrutiny means, but it's a very high standard that certainly doesn't apply to every case. As I understand it, it's more likely to be applied when fundamental rights are infringed, but I would never try to predict how the Court might rule on any particular case.
(Courts, for what it's worth, continue to function).