Privação de liberdade e lockdown pandémico: Repensando a jurisprudência do Tribunal Europeu dos Direitos Humanos

Felipe Augusto CARVALHO

doi:10.34625/issn.2183-2705(39.2)2026.ic-1

Authors

Felipe Augusto CARVALHO Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5765-836X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34625/issn.2183-2705(39.2)2026.ic-1

Keywords:

Liberty, Deprivation of Liberty, Lockdown, Confinement, Derogation, Pandemic, European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has traditionally interpreted Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights through cases concerning individuals or small groups, such as police detention or compulsory hospitalization. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, confronted the Court with an unprecedented scenario: mandatory home confinement imposed simultaneously and indiscriminately on the entire population. This article examines how this shift in scale challenges the established doctrinal and normative framework, analysing the ECtHR’s recent departure from traditional paradigms in addressing lockdown measures. It advances a middle-ground position, according to which general confinement may amount to a deprivation of liberty—without being automatically excluded from Article 5—yet can be legitimately justified under Article 5(1)(e) in the context of public health emergencies, including in relation to healthy individuals, thereby relativizing the necessity of derogation under Article 15.

Author Biography

Felipe Augusto CARVALHO, Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra

Felipe is a legal scholar specializing in International Human Rights Law, Public Law, and Law and Religion. His scholarship focuses on freedom of religion or belief, refugee rights, human rights limitations, and emergency legal frameworks.

Bridging academia, civil society, and multilateral engagement, Felipe has submitted Amicus briefs to the Brazilian Supreme Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, advised on national human rights policy, and contributed to advocacy within both the UN and Inter-American human rights systems. He has also collaborated in various capacities with government bodies, academic institutions, and international organisations, including the Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights, KAICIID, Globethics, Regent’s Park College (University of Oxford), and the International Institute for Religious Freedom.

Felipe holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree from the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and an LLB from Universidade Estadual da Paraíba (Brazil). He is co-founder of the Brazilian Journal of Law and Religion, a founding member of the Lusophone Alliance for Religious Freedom, and a recipient of multiple academic scholarships and awards, including the Norman Anderson Award from the Kirby Laing Centre.

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