16 November 2021 - Within the framework of partnership between the Split Faculty of Law and Université Panthéon - Assas (Paris II), on 15 and 16 November 2021, an international webinar Croatian-French Days of Administrative Law was held on "Challenges for the system of legal rules and freedoms in relation to COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters". The Constitutional Court of Croatia, as a long term supporter of this professional gathering, was represented by Deputy President Dr Snježana Bagić, who gave a lecture about application of the constitutional provision on the state of emergency. In between other things she emphasised that: "Irrespective of different legal approaches taken by states in introducing restrictive measures and their diversity, when adopting the measures the states must respect the principle of proportionality, making sure that the measure is appropriate for the protection of public health (suitability test), that the protection could not be as effectively achieved by less restrictive measure (necessity test) and that the measure is rational, taking into account other conflicting social interests and degree of interference in the freedom of movement (proportionality stricto sensu). At the same time, in choosing the measure the legislator is given a wider margin of discretion, i.e. the necessity test is mitigated, given that lack of complete and firm scientific knowledge about COVID-19 disease makes identification of less restrictive measures difficult."
