On Tuesday, the Council of State declared that the new bill contains a proposal which does not respect the principle of the separation of powers, in particular the section which concerns the Minister of Education, Claude Meisch:
RTL Today article: Council of State says amendment interferes with legislative and executive powerOn Wednesday, the Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CCDH) published its review of the new laws, which concludes that vague phrasing paired with a significant amount of mistakes make it difficult to assess the meaning of the text. Furthermore, it criticises the bill for containing details that were not priorly communicated to the public.
In that regard, commission official Anamarija Tunjic highlights that personal data stemming from negative Covid tests will be stored for longer periods of time, which government representatives failed to announce during the last press conference: "Up until now, information was saved for 72 hours. The new bill will however introduce a different system, which means that information will be kept under pseudonyms for six months, and in anonymous form for another three years. This is significantly longer than before." The CCDH further notes that the justification for the change is unconvincing.
While the commission approves of the new legal basis for collecting personal data from students and pupils, which will facilitate and accelerate the tracing process, the change puts into question how it was done before.
When it comes to the vaccination campaign, the commission is satisfied with the decision to involve general practitioners more in the process, so that they may help consult patients and redirect them to the Ministry of Health for an appointment. However, the CCDH states that the government should also encourage people to show initiative themselves.
Last week, the Luxembourgish journalist association ALJP criticised the government for no longer providing full access to the press conferences:
RTL Today article: Luxembourgish journalist association fed up with government's press officeSimilarly, the Consultative Commission on Human Rights questions the decision to only make parts of the press conference available online, while the Q+A at the end is cut out, especially since the latter part often helps clearing up ambiguities. The CCDH thus urgently recommends that the government changes back to the original model.
The new Covid bill will be up for vote on Friday afternoon.
