COVID-19: Constitutional Council censures access to student vaccine status by directors

In a decision made on Tuesday, the high court has, on the other hand, validated the extension of the sanitary pass until July 31, 2022.

Le Monde with AFP

The Constitutional Council has censored the controversial access to school directors to the government’s vaccine status, but validated the extension of the sanitary pass until the end of July 2022, in a decision made public Tuesday 9 November.

The Constitutional Council considered that the provisions on the school component of the “health vigilance” bill, adopted on Friday by Parliament, wore a “disproportionate infringement of the right to respect for privacy”. On the other hand, they rely that the maintenance of the pass until the summer operated “a balanced conciliation” between the objective of health protection and respect for rights and freedoms.

The bill “health vigilance” makes it possible to prolong the Government’s anti-COVID policy from 15 November until 31 July 2022 without a new vote of Parliament, along the Presidential elections in April and legislative in June, at large. Dam oppositions.

The Constitutional Council recalled that the incriminated provisions had “or the effect of depriving” the Parliament of the right to meet, to control the action of the government and to legislate. After inflamed debates at the Bourbon Palace and the Palace of Luxembourg, deputies and the right and left senators had seized the Constitutional Council on Friday.

Field of application too wide and fuzzy finality

Introduced by a government amendment at first reading to the National Assembly, the possibility for school directors to access information on the virological status of students, their contacts with contaminated persons and their vaccine status. been retorted by the Council. Presented as a means of preventing classes or organizing vaccination campaigns, this measure criticized, including in the educational community, has a field of application too broad, judged the Council.

It made it possible to proceed to the processing of these data, “without the prior notice the consent of the students concerned or, if they are minor, their legal representatives,” said the Council. It also considered that medical information was likely to be communicated to persons not subject to medical incoming.

Finally, the same purpose of the device, namely to organize the conditions of teaching to prevent the risks of propagation of the virus, has not been defined with “sufficient precision”, estimated the Constitutional Council.

/Media reports.