The statement
‘Lisbon Court of Appeal 11 Nov 20 ruling finds PCR non-test is not a reliable test for anything least of all COVID-19.’
The source
Funnily enough I found this via a link in a blog comment relating to the Johns Hopkins University censorship episode reported on here earlier.
The link takes you to an English translation of a judgment of the Lisbon Court of Appeal (in Portuguese) : http://www.dgsi.pt/jtrl.nsf/33182fc732316039802565fa00497eec/79d6ba338dcbe5e28025861f003e7b30
The Habeas Corpus case relates to four individuals who were mandatorily confined after one of them tested positive for Covid-19. They sought relief against the relevant regional health authority.
My take on it
The translation has its challenges, but I have gleaned a few points:
- ‘A diagnosis is a medical act, the sole responsibility of a doctor.’
- ‘The prescription of auxiliary diagnostic methods (as is the case of tests for the detection of viral infection), as well as the diagnosis of the existence of a disease, in relation to any and all people, is a matter that cannot be carried out by Law, Resolution, Decree, Regulation or any other normative way, as these are acts that our legal system reserves to the exclusive competence of a doctor, being sure that, in advising his patient, he should always try to obtain their informed consent.’
- Any diagnosis or any act of health surveillance performed without prior medical observation of the patients and without the intervention of an enrolled physician (who proceeded to assess their signs and symptoms, as well as the tests that they deemed appropriate to their condition), violates Regulations and Statutes.
- Any person or entity that issues an order, the content of which leads to deprivation of physical, ambulatory, freedom of others (whatever the nomenclature this order assumes: confinement, isolation, quarantine, prophylactic protection, health surveillance, etc.), that does not fit the legal provisions, namely in the provisions of article 27 of the Constitution of the Republic of Portugal, he will be proceeding to an illegal detention.
- ‘The RT-PCR test is, in itself, unable to determine, beyond reasonable doubt, that positivity corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for several reasons.’
- ‘The legislative turmoil generated around the containment of the spread of COVID-19 had – and will continue to have – in its raison d’être the protection of public health, but this turmoil can never harm the right to freedom and security and, ultimately, the absolute right to human dignity.’