The Covid-19 and Public Law of Sri Lanka

Abstract

When the novel corona virus 2019 pandemic hit the countries world over and ours, it was a dreadful scenario as to how we would be handling the crisis and safeguard the lives of people with minimum hardship to the people and maximum benefit to the country. In this study, it is considered whether the government handled the pandemic crisis effectively from the public health perspective and also from the public law perspective, in particular from the standpoint of rule of law. The approach to research is qualitative and library-based. The study shows that the government had necessary laws in place to effectively and efficiently deal with the pandemic from the medical and public health standpoint as well as from the rule of law perspective. However, the study concludes that while the government handled the covid-19 pandemic in a creditable manner from the public health perspective, its score card is dismal looked at from the rule of law perspective.