Abba Elgujja (Al-Ansar University; King Saud University – College of Medicine) & Kelechi Onyegbule (Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike) have posted Human Dignity and the Jurisprudence of Public Health Emergencies: A Constitutional Appraisal of Quarantine and Surveillance Measures in Nigeria on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article reexamines Nigeria’s public-health emergency governance through the constitutional lens of human dignity. Drawing on the COVID-19 experience, it critiques the state’s continued reliance on the colonial-era Quarantine Act 1926 (Cap Q2 LFN 2004), which privileges coercive executive discretion over legality, proportionality, and rights-based accountability. Using a comparative constitutional approach, the paper develops a Dignity-Proportionality Test (DPT), a four-limb analytical framework (legality, necessity, proportionality, and dignity safeguard), for assessing the constitutionality of emergency restrictions. The analysis demonstrates how measures such as compulsory isolation, surveillance, and data disclosure infringed the rights to dignity (s 34), liberty (s 35), and privacy (s 37) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Integrating Islamic bioethics and global standards, including Article 3(1) of the International Health Regulations (2005, as amended 2024), the Africa CDC Framework (2023), and WHA Resolution 75.8 (2022), the study argues that ethical governance is a constitutional imperative. It proposes legislative reform anchored in a new Public-Health (Emergency Preparedness and Response) Act embedding the DPT, Human-Rights and Data-Protection Impact Assessments (HRIA/DPIA), and independent oversight bodies: The National Public-Health Oversight Commission (NPHOC) and the Bioethics and Emergency Governance Board (BEGB). The paper further calls for a culture of rights-conscious administration and specialised judicial review to ensure that emergency powers serve, rather than suspend, the Constitution. By situating Nigeria within its regional (AU) and global (WHO) normative networks, the paper reconceptualises public-health security as constitutional stewardship rather than sovereign exception. It concludes that embedding dignity as the measure of legality offers a sustainable path toward a cooperative, rights-affirming model of pandemic governance.