A lawsuit prevented the governor of New York and the state’s health department from being able to lock down or lock up in quarantine anyone they suspect of having a contagious disease — but New York’s executive government wants those powers back.
A group of New York lawmakers along with the advocacy group Uniting NYS in April 2022 sued New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Health over a regulation that gave Hochul’s administration the power to mandate isolation and/or quarantine for anyone of any age whom they believed was exposed to communicable diseases.
A judge struck down the regulation in July 2022, stating that it was unconstitutional and lacking in due process, according to Bobbie Anne Cox, a New York attorney who represented the lawmakers.
However, the governor and her administration in March appealed the judge’s decision, Cox told political commentator Kim Iversen on a recent episode of “The Kim Iversen Show.”
Oral arguments before an appellate five-judge panel will take place on Sept. 13, Cox told The Defender.
“I do want to point out to your viewers,” Cox said, “what this regulation said. It was unbelievable.”
Under the regulation, she said, New York public health authorities “could have removed you from your home with the force of police and put you into a detention facility of their choosing.”
Cox told Iversen:
“You had no say where you went and they could have held you there — or locked you in your house — for days, for weeks or months. There was no time restriction in that regulation.
“And they could have done this not just to you, but they could have done this to your child or your grandchild or your elderly parent. There was no age restriction in that regulation.
“There was no way for you to get out once they put you in there, meaning there wasn’t a procedure built into the regulation that said, for example, you can take a test so you could prove that you don’t have COVID or that you don’t have tuberculosis or whatever other disease is on their list.”
Iversen — who called the regulation “frightening” — asked Cox if it applied to infants.
For instance, Iversen said, “They could just say, ‘You know what, your baby’s been exposed. We’re taking your baby away from you.’”
Cox confirmed that the regulation stipulated no age restrictions, so it could be applied to any age.
New York Assemblyman Chris Tague, one of the plaintiffs represented by Cox, said in a press release that the regulation “is unconstitutional on its face, and the thought of empowering our state government to take loved ones out of our homes for any amount of time, without due process, should concern all New Yorkers.”
Tague said that it was “despicable” that the governor is fighting to save “such a nightmarish policy” — and “it is our duty as the people of this state to let her know these attempts to infringe upon our basic human rights will not be tolerated.”
“This is not a monarchy,” Cox told Iversen. “The governor can’t just snap her fingers and get what she wants.”
New York — like most states — already has a quarantine law that has many due process protections built in, so citizens can’t be abused by the government, Cox said.
Cox said the governor’s regulation conflicted with that law.
However, the governor’s lawyers argued that the new regulation complements and clarifies the existing law, she said. “It’s a pretty flimsy argument in my opinion,” Cox said. “I think it’s pretty clear that those two things are in direct conflict.”
She added:
“They’re going to have their chance to argue [in September] and I’m going to have my chance to argue, and we’ll see where the judges end up. But it’s pretty scary because if they [the appellate judges] do overturn that decision [to strike down the regulation as unconstitutional] … it’s not only going to give them the power to lock people up or lock people down at will with no proof of illness, but it’s also going to send a signal to other agencies — not just in New York, in other states.”
In other words, Cox said, agencies will think they can make any rules they want, even if those rules conflict with existing law “because look, we got away with it here in this case.”
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Read the article here: New York to Appeal After Judge Strikes Down ‘Unconstitutional’ Quarantine Law • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)