The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Rik Daems, has urged the governments of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe to abide strictly by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) when adopting emergency measures to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
Public emergencies may call for restrictive measures that go beyond what is normally allowed by the ECHR, he acknowledged, on Tuesday 24 March, but "without appropriate guarantees, such measures create...