From 1 June, the cabinet can no longer just decide to close schools and nurseries or to ban contact professions. These measures are currently still an option in the corona law, with which the cabinet can quickly introduce new corona rules, but will be removed from this on 1 June. That is what Minister Kuipers of Health writes to the House of Representatives.
Other rules can no longer be announced just like that in, for example, a corona press conference. It concerns restrictions for hotels and holiday parks and maximum group sizes. Other measures had already been removed from the corona law, including the curfew and restrictions on public facilities, such as public toilets.
Drastic measures
The corona law was introduced in December 2020 as ‘Temporary law measures covid-19’. Since then, the law has already been extended five times, on June 1 for the sixth time. The House of Representatives and the Senate must agree to this. This often happens with retroactive effect: for example, the House of Representatives will only discuss the extension of the corona law as of 1 March on Monday.
With the corona law, the cabinet has a legal basis to be able to introduce far-reaching corona measures, without the intervention or approval of parliament in advance. However, the House of Representatives can reverse the measures introduced within a week if a majority does not agree.
Bill
The fact that the measures regarding schools, daycare centers and contact professions will disappear from the corona law as of 1 June means that the cabinet can only introduce those rules if it comes up with a new bill. This must first be approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate. And not, like now, only afterwards.
Other measures remain in the corona law, which can therefore still be introduced in the short term. This concerns, for example, the corona admission ticket, the mouth mask obligation and the obligation to keep one and a half meters away.
According to Kuipers, such measures will only be used if the situation calls for it and the measures are necessary to combat the epidemic.
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