The emergency was supposed to be short but lasted for 763 days, allowing ministers to bring in, by decree over 100 new laws restricting freedoms more than any in history - laws that were almost never debated, changed at a whim and increasingly confused the public. Well-known human rights barrister Adam Wagner, based at Doughty Street Chambers, recently published Emergency State: How we lost our freedoms in the pandemic and why it matters (Bodley Head, 2022). Bush comments that the situations that resulted in "Covid states" is near certain to happen again and that the book is a vital contribution to a debate about how to ensure the next pandemic does not damage the democratic model. Northern Ireland was mentioned once, Scotland a few times although I don't think Wales was even mentioned once throughout.

Wagner argues that the Public Health Act is a flawed piece of legislation allowing government to legislate without accountability, noting that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 still gives the government immense power while providing Parliament more scrutiny both in terms of the timeliness of review at the ability for parliament to amend legislation. while also complaining about constantly changing rules with ever increasing exceptions, and a “summer of micromanagement” in 2020. He was a protagonist in the Reclaim These Streets litigation and gives a first-hand account of the challenges he faced. Sumption felt Wagner was qualified to do so and that human rights lawyers had a role in protecting basic freedoms.The ‘extremely powerful but entirely opaque’ Covid-19 Cabinet committees released no minutes and made decisions behind closed doors; a ‘democratic black box’, as Wagner puts it. It illustrates how easily our freedoms were taken from us by the rulings of a small but powerful group and how important it was that professionals like Adam were there to challenge some of these decisions. Imagine the public outcry if Parliament had taken several months to examine the Bill properly while the bodies piled up around the country. people were subject to hotel quarantine, many of whom were traumatised by the experience and harassed by those assigned to guard them; police often had little idea of what rules were in force and carried out their duties without clear guidance, and expensive fines were handed down to people who had little sense of the legality of what they had done; punitive legislation was made public hours before it became law. Wagner argues that another key problem was that Boris Johnson's government was uninterested in parliamentary democracy and scrutiny.

As Wagner relates in his invaluable new book, quizzing police officers and other officials attempting to enforce emergency regulations became his lockdown hobby. Quentin Letts, reviewing the book in The Times, said that it did not "quite sing" but made valid points. As a lawyer, Adam is primarily concerned about the law-making process, the lack of parliamentary scrutiny, the use of summary justice and the lack of clarity in the law at that time. The book is full of tolerance, recognising that imperfections and compromises are inevitable and proportionate, but it is also critical of reckless abuses. At one point he quotes Orwell, writing that whether you lose or keep your freedom depends on “the general temper in the country”.

Wagner doesn’t go full Giorgio Agamben by any means (and rightly condemns grotesque comparisons to Nazi laws), but there is a logic in “states of exception” thinking that can feed conspiracism and scepticism of science and democratic government, and I worry that this book flirts a little with that logic. It’s true that when it was illegal to visit someone else’s home, you couldn’t go round to your girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s and have sex with them there (or eat a meal with them or share a bottle of wine, to mention other possible activities).

I recently finished my read-through of ‘Emergency State’ by Adam Wagner, a book designed to challenge the readers perceptions of the law surrounding COVID-19.Robert Low of The Jewish Chronicle says that it is hard to disagree with the books conclusions that the UK came as close to a police state as in living memory. More serious is the statistic that nearly 120,000 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for Covid regulation breaches were issued in two years in England and Wales; Wagner recommends that all of them should now be reviewed.

Adam Wagner is one of the UK's leading human rights barristers and the country's preeminent expert on Covid-19 laws.It provides an infographic showing how covid cases and deaths progressed during the pandemic and which restrictrictions were in place at these times and a timeline of restrictions. I see this approach as hypercritical, and making it difficult to recognise, acknowledge or support proportionate measures when you see them. I highly recommend the book, which should certainly be read by politicians of all parties as well as all senior civil servants. Wagner notes that most modern states have legislation to allow emergency powers where constitutional protections for fundamental rights can be suspended. Overall a very good quality service from this seller and I would not hesitate to recommend this seller.