We advised Eesti Tsiviilallianss (an Estonian NGO) about amendments to the draft law ‘’Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Act’’.
High public interest
The draft law created a lot of fuss in the whole country, even bringing numerous protesters in front of the Parliament for days. The protesters were afraid that some of the proposed amendments would give too much power to the police and give the state a chance to impose disproportionately high fines. The initiated draft law was, among other things, aimed to bring in a new fine for non-compliance of safety measures for diseases, like the obligation to wear face masks in light of Covid-19.
Successful in lowering fines and introducing statutory norm
We drafted amendments to the draft law, which our client submitted to the Parliament. We also represented the client before the Parliament and introduced our amendments. We were successful regarding two of the amendments we proposed regarding the suggested fines.
Firstly, based on our recommendations, the Parliament lowered the fines two times for non-compliance of the requirements stated in the law. Originally the maximum for a natural person was EUR 800 which was lowered to maximum EUR 400. Secondly, additional changes about fines, which were planned to be brought up to two to five times higher, were not made.
In addition to the now passed draft law, our team introduced an amendment to which our partner Allar Jõks had already paid attention to half a year ago – the government did not have a statutory norm for making wearing a mask obligatory to everyone. This statutory norm is now included in the law.
Our client team
The client was advised by our partner Allar Jõks and associate Gerli Helene Gritsenko.
