Mandatory Vaccination and Confinement Included in Draconian Health Bill for NI

The NI Government is currently running a public consultation on the Orwellian Public Health Bill. The new Bill is seeking to upgrade and strengthen the existing Public Health Act and bring it into alignment with the World Health Organisation’s notorious International Health Regulations. Human Rights Lawyer Michael Brentnall has analysed the 79-page policy document in detail and explains what he found in a highly informative video interview. He describes the proposed NI Public Health Bill as “spine-chilling” and “the most frightening proposed piece of legislation I have ever read”. Mr. Brentnall says that this Bill has “the potential to take us to a dystopian future whereby we are under the jackboot of the state”.

The Bill would give the authorities unprecedented power in a health emergency, including the ability to mandate vaccines and preventative treatment for individuals, potentially opening the door to forced vaccinations. It also seeks to give authorities the power to:

detain and quarantine individuals for up to 28 days;
mandate the wearing of “medical clothing” e.g. face masks;
force medical examinations and health monitoring;
forcibly enter premises and confiscate belongings without a warrant;
require children to be kept off school;
close businesses and keep adults off work;
breach medical confidentiality and privacy by allowing wide data sharing of patient medical information with various state bodies;
require an individual to answer questions regarding their health status;
require a person to attend “training or advice sessions”;
legislate as to “where the person may go or with whom the person has contact”.

A court would simply have to ascertain that a person “may be infected” or “could present” a risk to human health and infection or contamination of others. This is far too weak a position to justify the draconian and extreme restrictions and requirements detailed in the document. Forced medical examination, forced vaccination, removal and detention of a person and the restriction of movement, on the basis of an unproven risk, are gross violations of medical ethics and fundamental human rights.

The provision to remove a person to a hospital or “other facility” and detain his against his will is sinister and a breach of fundamental individual freedoms and rights. This power was greatly abused in New Zealand and some Australian states during the Covid lockdowns and amounts to internment without trial, based on unproven and unreliable testing procedures such as PCR tests.

The proposed isolation of individuals was a measure used during Covid and had serious detrimental effects on the mental and physical health of many. The risks to the individual and society far outweigh any purported benefits. Human beings are sociable, needing human company to maintain overall physical and mental health. Isolation benefits no-one, particularly children.

The legislation extends to premises, people and things, and gives the authorities (in the form of the police and other unspecified enforcement agencies) powers which they have never previously had, including powers to seize people’s property, to enter premises to disinfect or decontaminate, and to “require a person to answer questions”. There is no doubt that these powers will be open to abuse by overzealous officials or poorly trained constables.

Do we really want to create a society where officials can forcibly enter people’s homes and take them away? If someone invoked her legal right to remain silent, would the officer have the right to use physical violence to force that person to answer a question? Orders could be imposed by magistrates’ courts simply on the belief that a person may be infected or contaminated. This is an extremely vague formulation which is open to abuse and panicky decision-making at times of crisis.

The proposal to force a person to be vaccinated or to receive other prophylactic treatment, against her will and without her consent, is abhorrent and a direct assault on the principle of bodily autonomy. It violates all the current laws and codes around informed consent and ethical medical treatment. This is a hard red line that should never be crossed by the state. This clear ethical boundary between the state and the individual exists to prevent the state abusing its power to force medical treatment on a sovereign individual. Where there is risk there must be choice.

It is encouraging that last week the Northern Ireland Health Minister Mike Nesbitt spoke out against mandatory vaccination, saying:

I am not in favour of mandatory vaccination even in limited and tightly prescribed circumstances. Nevertheless, it is right that we have a public conversation about all potential options in the public consultation, as we decide what should be in the final Bill to protect us all.

But we must not be complacent. In point 10 of the Annex of the consultation document (page 76) it states that one of the reasons for the consultation is that “Opinion is divided as to whether there should be a power to impose medical treatment on an individual”.

It is important to remember that medical ethics and laws protecting individual rights exist for emergencies, when decisions are often taken in panic or fear, and when abuse and atrocities are most likely to occur. We cannot allow the desire for safety to override individual autonomy. There appears to have been no consideration of the serious costs and harms resulting from the list of restrictions and requirements – on both the individuals affected and wider society – or any safeguarding of the right of individuals involved to challenge these orders.

The proposed Bill would give unprecedented and highly authoritarian powers to the state, with minimal and flimsy protections for individuals. The scope of powers proposed constitutes a gross overreach by the state into areas of personal autonomy and responsibility. The state appears to have lost sight of the fact that, in a democracy, its role is to serve the public, not rule over them. This proposed bill is not a response to public demand for more restrictions, but instead is driven by a clear desire by public health authorities to expand their powers and further encroach into decision-making and risk mitigation for the public, which individuals are quite capable of doing themselves. It is an attempt by the authorities to micromanage the life of individuals in a vain attempt to eliminate risk caused by a natural agent such as a virus, infantilising the public in the process.

The experience of the last four years clearly demonstrates that no amount of state micromanagement of public life had any significant effect on the mortality or morbidity from Covid, but that the abuse of state power in fact caused devastating collateral damage to individual physical and mental health, children’s education, societal cohesion and the economy. The lessons learned from Covid should lead us instead to restrict the powers of the state in an emergency and put a higher protection on individual freedoms and medical ethics in all circumstances, trusting in people to be able to assess their own risk, make their own decisions and take responsibility for themselves and those around them in a humane and balanced way.

The deadline for the public consultation has just been extended from September 27th to October 14th 2024, due to “significant public interest”. Predictably, the authorities have not made it easy for members of the public to respond, as it involves answering nearly 50 detailed questions relating to complex proposals in the 79-page policy document, which is a time-consuming process.

In his interview, Michael Brentnall announced that he and his colleagues are instigating a legal challenge to the Public Consultation itself – which is required in law to be both clear and concise, to make it easy for the layperson to engage with. I can attest to the fact that it is neither! I spent about four to five hours last weekend completing the UKMFA submission, objecting to the Bill in the strongest possible terms.

We have published the UKMFA submission on our campaign page, along with other resources and links, to help the public engage with the consultation. There are also links to helpful template letters prepared by Together and Stop the NI Health Bill group for Northern Ireland residents to send to their MLPs.

This is a deeply disturbing bill, seeking to expand the powers of the state in ways which would violate fundamental principles of medical ethics – informed consent, bodily autonomy, medical choice – and also infringe many other human rights. These new measures would give the authorities the ability to exercise even more power than they did with Covid – and Northern Ireland could be used as a model for the wider U.K. It is vital that ordinary people make their voices heard before the October 14th deadline.

Dr. Elizabeth Evans is CEO of the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance.