The right to peaceful assembly is one of the fundamental human rights protected by international law yet it has often been restricted during the covid-19 pandemic. The United Nations and other international and regional organisations, international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies have stressed the need to protect human rights during the pandemic whilst states have been faced with the difficulty of balancing the protection of public health against the right to peaceful assembly, which is a key means for civil society to criticise the authorities (even during the pandemic). This Master's thesis illustrates the challenges for both national and international courts in deciding the proportionality of interferences with the right to peaceful assembly and presents the views of international and regional organisations on the protection of the right to peaceful assembly in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. Following an introduction to the right to peaceful assembly and a further analysis of unlawful interferences with the right to peaceful assembly during the covid-19 pandemic (at international, regional and national level), the Master's thesis seeks to answer the question whether – instead of prohibiting peaceful assemblies – there are alternative measures. The hypothesis of the Master's thesis is as follows: in a number of countries, including Slovenia, there were unlawful interferences with the right to peaceful assembly during the covid-19 pandemic, which were justified by the states on the grounds of the protection of the right to life. States could protect both rights through more lenient measures, thus allowing them to be exercised simultaneously.
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