Abstract:

Subsequent to the appearance of the COVID-19 contagion, governments around the world were confronted with the challenge of combating its spread. It has been established that the infection is predominantly human to human and this reality informed the approaches used to counter it. Governments, particularly those perceived to have impeccable democratic credentials, had the difficult decision to deploy martial laws against laissez faire tactics in order to save lives. Most countries resorted to martial law, which gave leaders of governments unfettered state power to make decisions “to save lives”. Whereas most Western countries took a wait-and-see approach in implementing State of Emergencies, China and most countries in the developing world were quick to declare them. Developing countries’ records on human rights are generally poor. There has been a worldwide human rights confrontation between governments and citizens on the extent of the instruments used to fight COVID 19. Have these instruments been effective? Have they been the only necessary and key instruments to fight the pandemic? To what extent did they impinge on the human rights imperatives of the citizen? This paper interrogates the necessity of using these instruments to combat COVID-19 and their consequences on people’s rights. The paper presents the instruments used in Zimbabwe and Botswana and uses the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) to compare their consequences on people’s freedoms in these countries. This research uses mixed methods in interrogating the impact of the administrative instruments that were used to combat COVID 19. Where necessary, descriptive and ethnographic approaches are employed to deepen the understanding of the impact of these instruments on human rights.

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