The civil aviation safety and the limits to freedom of movement: Reflections following the COVID-19 pandemic

The current regulatory framework for civil aviation safety has been substantially changed after the attack on the twin towers and relies on a set of precise and detailed rules. A reasonable compromise must therefore be found between the indicated objective of the prevention, investigation, detection and repression of acts of terrorism and other serious crimes and that of the protection of the freedom of movement and of personal data while respecting the privacy of the passengers. In this perspective, e.g., the compression of the right to the protection of personal data must comply with clear rules and must be strictly proportional to the objective to be achieved. Similar reflections can now be repeated regarding a more recent application of the principle contained in art. 16, first paragraph of the Italian Constitution on the subject of freedom of movement. In fact, nothing gets past to the interpreter about the analogy between the restrictions on freedom of movement and the right to move freely deriving from the legislation on civil aviation safety, and the most recent event linked to the Coronavirus pandemic which imposed a limitation to the freedom of movement of persons: in both cases it is a compromise dictated by «health and safety reasons», circumstances shared by the constitutional legislator among the hypotheses for which it is possible to provide by law a limitation to the full explanation of rights mentioned above

Cecilia Severoni, La sicurezza dell’aviazione civile e i limiti alla libertà di circolazione: riflessioni a seguito della pandemia da COVID-19 in "RIVISTA ITALIANA DI DIRITTO DEL TURISMO" 30/2020, pp 148-184, DOI: 10.3280/DT2020-030011