Extension of COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare employees in Greece deemed unconstitutional because of lack of reassessment

The Council of State of Greece considers the extension of the suspension for healthcare employees who will not be vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 is unconstitutional as a result of it lacks reassessment primarily based on scientific epidemiological information.

The Council of State of Greece dominated on November 24 that the extension of vaccine mandates utilized to employees in healthcare amenities till the top of 2022 was unconstitutional.

Greek highest administrative courtroom considers the mandate lacked re-evaluation primarily based on scientific information and was “opposite to the constitutional precept of proportionality.”

Within the ruling, judges write that selections which will “represent a severe interference in elementary human rights” have to be utilized in the course of the “completely essential time frame” and “have to be reviewed periodically by the competent state authorities relying on the present epidemiological information and the evolution of legitimate scientific assumptions.”

The legislation extending the suspension of employees in healthcare amenities who weren’t vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 was issued on April 14, 2022.

However for the courtroom, the choice utilized for a interval of 8 months “clearly exceeds what is cheap with out having been re-assessed with scientific and epidemiological information.” The administration instructed the courtroom it deliberate on evaluating the epidemiological situations on the finish of the 12 months.

Reacting to the courtroom choice earlier than it was revealed, Minister of Well being Thanos Plevris acknowledged he wished to “assess the choice in its entirety,” and wished to “guarantee the residents that every one essential measures will probably be taken to verify public well being shouldn’t be endangered by the implementation of the choice.” The minister additionally famous the suspension of unvaccinated well being employees was initially dominated as a constitutional measure by the courtroom.

In October, Mr Plevris thought of that “unvaccinated well being employees haven’t any place within the well being system, as a result of they don’t imagine in science.”

Greece is likely one of the European Union international locations to have imposed the COVID-19 vaccination to its healthcare practitioners, together with France, Germany and Italy.

In all international locations, the variety of healthcare professionals who refused to get vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 is extraordinarily small.

However Italy with the brand new far-right authorities shaped by Georgia Meloni accepted on November 2 that the 4,000 healthcare employees who weren’t vaccinated take again their place. The matter is presently being debated in France.

The Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Workers (POEDN), the second largest commerce union physique in Greek healthcare, had seized the Council of State again in April to cancel the extension of the vaccine mandate for well being professionals. In a press release revealed Friday, POEDN was glad by the “courageous choice” from the courtroom.

POEDN argued the extension wasn’t primarily based on scientific epidemiological information when within the meantime the restrictive measures to forestall the unfold of COVID-19 had been lifted and the protocols within the hospitals had been relaxed since mid-April.

POEDN has all the time been in favor of vaccination and underlined within the assertion they “didn’t wish to create unfavorable reflexes in society about vaccines, since we owe the present good epidemiological state of affairs within the nation for a big half to mass vaccination.”

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