<p>BUCHAREST — The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday ruled against a member of the European Union parliament who claimed that a lockdown to curb COVID-19 infections in his native Romania last year deprived him of liberty.</p>
<p>Cristian Terhes, a member of the European Parliament since 2019, had filed a case with the court arguing that Romania’s March 24-May 14 national lockdown amounted to “administrative detention.”</p>
<p>A panel of seven judges at the ECHR unanimously rejected Terhes’ claims, ruling them “inadmissible.” The court said the lockdown could not be equated with house arrest.</p>
<p>“He had not been subject to individual surveillance by the authorities and did not claim to have been forced to live in a cramped space, nor had he been deprived of all social contact,” the court said <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-7024603-9478039">in a news release</a> explaining the ruling. </p>
<p>The ECHR panel also noted that Terhes — a former Catholic priest who has spoken out in the European Parliament against the potential introduction of “digital green certificates,” sometimes called coronavirus passports — had not provided any information describing his actual experience of the lockdown.</p>
<p>Tehres was not immediately available for comment Thursday.</p>
<p>During the lockdown period at issue in the case, authorities advised people in Romania against leaving their homes between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. There was also a 10 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew.</p>
<p>Residents in Romania could legally leave their homes providing they carried an official exemption form detailing their reasons, their whereabouts and a timeframe for their activity.</p>
<p>“No individual preventive measures had been taken against the applicant," the court said, adding that "the measure in question could not be equated with house arrest.” </p>
<p>The decision is final, the court said.</p>
<p>Council of Europe spokesperson Andrew Cutting said the case was the first directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic to be considered by a 7-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights. He also said that 17 other pandemic-related cases are pending. </p>
