APPLICATION

For an assessment of governance through fear and vaccination pressure during the COVID-19 crisis, the possible interference with the applicant’s individual fundamental rights, and the effectiveness of the actions of the Chancellor of Justice

Dear Chancellor of Justice,

I request that you assess the vaccination pressure and the use of fear to influence people in Estonia during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the possible effects of these measures on people’s fundamental rights.

I also request an assessment of the actions of the institution of the Chancellor of Justice itself during the period in question and an explanation as to whether the legal remedies employed by the Chancellor of Justice were sufficiently effective in view of the nature and extent of the problem.

The purpose of this application is not to make personal accusations against Ülle Madise.

The issue concerns the actions of the Chancellor of Justice as a constitutional institution and whether the principles publicly expressed by the Chancellor of Justice were consistent with the actual performance of her official duties during the COVID-19 crisis.

The actions of a public official must be assessed on the basis of their competence, statutory duties and the legal remedies actually used. If the Chancellor of Justice herself retrospectively acknowledges that a problem existed, it is reasonable to ask whether the problem was identified and addressed effectively enough at the time when its impact on people was immediate.

1. The position publicly expressed by the Chancellor of Justice on 18 September 2026

On 18 September 2026, in the Kuku Radio programme Kahe vahel, the Chancellor of Justice discussed, among other things, governance and manipulation through fear, and referred to the COVID-19 crisis as an example of a situation in which such methods of influence were used.

The substance of her position was that directing people’s behaviour through fear is problematic and damages both individual freedom of choice and the normal functioning of society.

This position is highly significant for the present application.

The question is no longer merely whether some people felt during the COVID-19 crisis that they were being manipulated through fear.

In 2026, the Chancellor of Justice herself publicly addressed governance and manipulation through fear in the context of the COVID-19 crisis as a problematic phenomenon.

This inevitably raises the following question: if governance and manipulation through fear actually occurred during the COVID-19 crisis, how did the Chancellor of Justice review its constitutionality while it was taking place?

2. The principles articulated by the Chancellor of Justice herself

In the same interview, Ülle Madise spoke about excessive control of society and stated that the state should not dictate to people how they must live.

She described reasonable caution, freedom and responsibility as foundations of a healthy society and warned against a situation in which people’s lives are increasingly controlled and directed.

These principles are directly relevant to the assessment of the COVID-19 crisis.

Vaccination constitutes a medical intervention affecting a person’s bodily integrity. In making such a decision, bodily autonomy and freedom of choice carry particular weight.

The issue therefore cannot be reduced merely to whether Estonia had a legal rule requiring a person to be vaccinated by physical force.

Indirect coercion may also arise where a person formally retains freedom of choice, but one of the available choices is linked to severe employment-related, financial or social consequences.

3. Voluntary vaccination and genuine freedom of will

It is important to distinguish between formal and genuine voluntariness.

If a person is told that vaccination is voluntary, but refusal may result in loss of employment, suspension from work, loss of income, exclusion from social life or other significant restrictions, a legitimate question arises as to how free that person’s actual decision-making remained.

None of these consequences should be assessed solely in isolation. Their cumulative impact must be assessed.

A single restriction may appear moderate when viewed separately, but the combined effect of several simultaneous pressure measures may interfere with a person’s freedom of choice to a substantially greater degree.

This is precisely where the Chancellor of Justice’s own 2026 position on the problematic nature of governance and manipulation through fear becomes relevant.

If fear was deliberately used to alter people’s behaviour, the constitutional assessment must address not only the objective of the measure but also the method of influence employed, its intensity, necessity and proportionality.

4. Specific interference with my individual rights

For me, this is not an abstract discussion of the measures used during the COVID-19 crisis. Those measures had a direct and specific effect on the exercise of my own fundamental rights.

I did not receive a COVID-19 vaccination. This was a conscious decision concerning my body and health. When the vaccines were introduced, they were new medicinal products, and in my assessment there was not yet sufficient knowledge of their long-term effects and possible adverse reactions to justify my consenting to a medical intervention that I perceived as, in essence, the administration of an unknown substance.

My caution at the time did not mean irresponsibility or a deliberate disregard for other people’s health. It meant making a decision about my own body while scientific knowledge was still developing and while vaccine safety information was later supplemented with adverse reactions that had not been addressed in the same way at the outset of the vaccination campaigns.

Formally, I retained the right to refuse vaccination. In practice, however, exercising that right was linked to practical, financial, social and bodily consequences.

To continue participating in ordinary social life and to use services available to vaccinated people on the basis of a vaccination certificate, I repeatedly had to prove that I was not infectious by undergoing tests. During a certain period, I had to pay for COVID-19 tests in order to participate normally in social life, for example by visiting catering establishments.

My exercise of bodily autonomy therefore carried a direct financial cost. I was not paying for treatment or for a service I independently wished to obtain, but to prove in advance that I was not infectious because I had exercised my right to refuse vaccination.

In addition to the financial cost, testing also constituted repeated interference with my bodily integrity. Taking a sample through the nose was not a mere formality but a real procedure in which the sampling instrument was inserted deep into the nasal cavity. I found it unpleasant, painful and sufficiently invasive to experience it as an interference with my bodily integrity.

My situation therefore cannot be assessed by treating each individual test separately. The cumulative effect of repeated testing must be considered, as must the fact that such bodily intervention became, for a period, a practical precondition for participation in ordinary social life.

My choice was therefore not simply “to vaccinate or not to vaccinate”. The actual choice was far more complex: either to accept a medical intervention that I did not consider sufficiently justified for myself, or to stand by my decision and consequently endure repeated testing, financial costs, restrictions and social pressure. In my assessment, this meant bearing an additional burden for remaining true to my convictions that was no longer compatible with basic principles of human dignity.

It is in this context that the genuine voluntariness of vaccination must be assessed.

If consenting to one medical intervention removes several additional obligations and restrictions, while refusing it requires a person repeatedly to undergo another bodily procedure, pay for it and prove that they are not infectious in order to continue their daily life, it is not sufficient merely to state that vaccination was formally voluntary.

The actual pressure that such regulation placed on the formation of a person’s will must also be analysed.

5. Public labelling and social pressure

This was compounded by social and psychological pressure created through public communication.

During the COVID-19 crisis, a strong divide developed in public discourse between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

An unvaccinated person was not always treated as someone who had made a different risk assessment regarding their health and body. In public discourse, such a person was often portrayed as irresponsible, a potential source of infection and a danger to others, including elderly people.

I also felt that I was directly targeted by such treatment.

For me, this meant that exercising my right to bodily autonomy entailed not only administrative or financial consequences but also a moral judgement.

My decision was associated in public discourse with irresponsibility, endangering others and a lack of social solidarity.

The same phenomenon was evident in the treatment of ivermectin.

In public debate, ivermectin was disparagingly described as a “horse medicine”, although ivermectin is also an antiparasitic medicine used in humans.

Veterinary preparations and pharmaceutical forms intended for humans cannot automatically be equated and may differ in dosage, concentration of the active ingredient and excipients, among other things.

I therefore perceived the expression “horse medicine” not as neutral medical information, but as a rhetorical device used to ridicule people who sought alternatives to vaccination for protecting their health or were interested in such options.

The issue is not whether ivermectin’s efficacy in treating COVID-19 was or is conclusively established.

The question is whether communication shaped by representatives of public authority, medical experts and public-service media was justified in treating people in a derisive or demeaning manner merely because they questioned the official course of treatment or were interested in using an alternative medicine.

For me, the effect of such rhetoric was not abstract.

It spread from the public sphere into personal relationships and caused tension within families, among close friends and relatives. I was treated as someone whose health-related choice might endanger others or whose position did not deserve serious discussion.

In such circumstances, the tone, wording and methods of influence used in public-authority communication acquire particular significance.

The state has the right, during a health crisis, to inform people, describe existing risks and recommend measures it considers scientifically justified.

This does not, however, give it the right to shape public communication in a manner that makes ridicule, moral condemnation or social exclusion of a person who has made a different medical choice acceptable.

Nor can such communication be assessed separately from the restrictions and other pressure measures in force at the same time.

When, on the one hand, a person’s participation in ordinary social life is restricted and their medical choice is linked to additional financial and bodily obligations, while, on the other hand, public discourse portrays them as irresponsible or dangerous to others, these measures have a cumulative effect.

Such an effect may compel people to restrict the exercise of their own fundamental rights and freedoms, not because the law directly prohibits their exercise, but because the social, financial and psychological cost of their choice is made so high that a formally free choice loses part of its genuine substance.

In my assessment, the constitutional evaluation of precisely this phenomenon is important for the future.

The question is not whether public authority had the right during the crisis to inform people or recommend vaccination.

The question is where the boundary lies between legitimate public-health information and public influence whose purpose or actual effect is to make the exercise of a particular fundamental right socially, financially or psychologically punishable.

If such methods are not subsequently subjected to a substantive and critical assessment, the possibility remains that they will be used again in future crises.

6. Informed consent and the actual significance of a signature

A separate question arises concerning consent given before vaccination and the significance of the signature provided for that purpose.

Formally, a person’s signature may demonstrate that information was presented and that the person consented to vaccination.

It does not automatically follow, however, that the consent was substantively informed and freely formed.

Informed consent cannot mean merely presenting a document for a person to sign.

What matters is what information was actually provided, what information it was even possible to provide at the time of vaccination, whether existing scientific uncertainty was explained, and whether the person had a genuine opportunity to ask questions and receive substantive answers.

An important problem arises here.

If some possible adverse reactions or risks were discovered or clarified only through the wider use of the vaccines, a person could not, at the time of vaccination, have knowingly consented to risks that medicine and pharmacovigilance themselves did not yet know about.

In that situation, an earlier signature cannot be interpreted as meaning that the person was also aware of matters that could not objectively have been explained at the time.

This does not in itself mean that the earlier consent automatically became invalid.

It does, however, raise the question of what was actually explained to the person and whether they were honestly informed about what was not yet known.

A person may knowingly consent to uncertainty, but only if the uncertainty itself is communicated to them in an understandable manner.

It must also be asked who was responsible for providing a substantive explanation and whether the person obtaining consent had sufficient competence and knowledge to answer questions about possible adverse reactions, long-term effects, transmission of infection, individual risks and alternatives.

If, in practice, consent was reduced to signing a standardised document without a substantive individual discussion of risks—or if such a discussion could not be held within the limits of the knowledge then available—it is reasonable to ask whether this constituted genuine informed consent or merely the administrative formalisation of informed consent.

This is further compounded by the issue of voluntariness.

Even properly documented information does not resolve the question of genuine voluntariness where a person simultaneously had to consider employment consequences, loss of income, social restrictions, repeated testing costs or strong social pressure.

I therefore also request an assessment of whether the consent procedure used for COVID-19 vaccination ensured genuinely informed and voluntary consent or may, in certain cases, have been limited to its formal documentation.

7. Sections 18, 19, 26 and 28 of the Constitution

Section 18 of the Constitution prohibits torture and cruel or degrading treatment.

Section 19 protects everyone’s right to free self-realisation.

Section 26 protects the inviolability of private and family life and permits interference only in the cases and for the purposes provided by law.

Section 28 establishes the right to the protection of health.

The COVID-19 measures therefore concern several fundamental rights at once: health, bodily autonomy, private life and self-determination, as well as, in more serious cases, human dignity and mental integrity.

I do not claim that every call to be vaccinated, every restriction or every employment-related measure constituted a violation of section 18 of the Constitution.

Such a generalisation would not be justified.

It must nevertheless be asked whether there were cases in which the cumulative psychological, financial and employment-related pressure imposed on a person reached such intensity that the possible applicability of section 18 should at least have been substantively examined.

8. The Chancellor of Justice’s duty to act effectively

Under the Chancellor of Justice Act, the Chancellor of Justice may review the constitutionality of legislation both upon application and on her own initiative.

In proceedings concerning compliance with fundamental rights and freedoms, the Chancellor of Justice may also ascertain the relevant facts and, where necessary, collect evidence on her own initiative.

Of particular importance is the principle set out in the Chancellor of Justice Act that proceedings must be guided, among other things, by effectiveness.

For the purposes of this application, it is therefore insufficient merely to ask whether the Chancellor of Justice responded to people’s submissions during the coronavirus crisis.

The question must be: what did those proceedings actually achieve?

Proceedings for their own sake are not an effective legal remedy.

When a constitutional institution becomes aware of a potentially systemic problem involving fundamental rights, the effectiveness of its actions cannot be measured solely by the number of letters processed, replies issued or explanations given.

It must be assessed whether the problem was identified, whether its causes and consequences were established, and whether the Chancellor of Justice used the means within her competence to prevent or end violations or avert their recurrence.

9. The Chancellor of Justice’s own 2026 position on effective response

Another part of the same interview addressed a situation in which a public authority knows what the law requires but essentially limits itself to reporting the issue without the actual problem being resolved.

The substance of the Chancellor of Justice’s position was that merely knowing about a problem and reporting it may not be sufficient if actual compliance with the law or genuine protection of a person’s rights is not achieved.

The same principle must apply when assessing the institutional actions of the Chancellor of Justice herself.

If mere knowledge of a possible violation and reporting it are insufficient for other public authorities, they cannot be sufficient as a measure of the Chancellor of Justice’s own actions either.

A constitutional institution cannot be held to a lower standard than the authorities whose actions it supervises.

10. The need for an individualised assessment

In the same interview, the Chancellor of Justice emphasised, in relation to other fundamental-rights issues, the importance of assessing a person’s actual individual risk and the consequences for that person.

Please explain whether the same principle was applied to COVID-19 measures and vaccination pressure.

Was the situation of the specific individual assessed?

Was the person’s health condition assessed?

Was prior recovery from the disease assessed?

Were the nature of the person’s work and the actual infection risk assessed?

Was the availability of alternative measures assessed?

Was the effect of suspension from work or loss of income on the person and their family assessed?

Was the cumulative effect of the restrictions applied simultaneously to the person assessed?

Or was the approach based primarily on the person’s vaccination status and the general public-health objective?

11. Article 8 of the ECHR and Pasquinelli and Others v. San Marino

The European Court of Human Rights addressed employment measures imposed on healthcare workers who refused COVID-19 vaccination in Pasquinelli and Others v. San Marino, no. 24622/22, 29 August 2024.

The Court regarded the vaccination decision as sufficiently closely connected with personal autonomy for Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to apply.

At the same time, in relation to the specific San Marino system, the Court found no violation of Article 8.

That judgment cannot be ignored.

Nor does it follow from the judgment that every form of vaccination pressure used in every country during COVID-19 was automatically proportionate.

In Pasquinelli, the Court attached importance to the specific regulatory framework, individual circumstances, measures used and their proportionality.

The Estonian situation must therefore likewise be assessed on the basis of the actual measures used in Estonia and their actual consequences.

12. Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, the duty to conduct an effective investigation, and the consequences of medical intervention

On 16 July 2026, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in S.T. v. the Czech Republic, no. 28273/23, finding, among other things, violations of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention in both their substantive and procedural aspects, as well as a violation of Article 14.

The facts of that case clearly differ from the issue of COVID-19 vaccination. It concerned a person who died following police intervention and the question whether the possible use of disproportionate force and a discriminatory motive had been adequately investigated.

I therefore do not claim that the S.T. judgment automatically turns vaccination, vaccination pressure or post-vaccination health damage into a violation of Articles 2 or 3 of the Convention.

The significance of the judgment for this application is primarily procedural.

Where a sufficiently serious and credible allegation is made that a person’s life or health has been gravely harmed and a possible link to the actions of public authority, a system organised by it or a medical intervention actively promoted by it is not manifestly unfounded, there must be a genuine and effective investigative mechanism capable of establishing the relevant facts.

In such a case, the entire burden of proving complex medical causation cannot in practice be placed on the person or their family.

Illness or death following vaccination does not automatically prove that the vaccine was the cause. It would, however, be equally unjustified to proceed from the opposite assumption that a possible link must be regarded as excluded unless the person can prove it fully on their own.

Aggregated pharmacovigilance data, adverse-reaction databases, medical records, comparative statistical data, expert capacity and the ability to compare health data systematically are predominantly held by the healthcare system, pharmacovigilance bodies and other competent institutions.

An ordinary person has no such investigative capacity.

If serious harm to health or death occurs after a medical intervention and a temporal, clinical or other factual connection makes the alleged causal link at least credible, there must be an independent and substantive procedure whose task is not to demand completed proof from the person, but, where necessary, to determine the connection itself.

This is the relevance of the principle arising from S.T. for the present application.

I do not equate police violence with vaccination. The analogy concerns the state’s procedural obligation: in the event of serious harm to life or health, the obligation to establish the actual cause cannot effectively be transferred to the individual when the necessary institutional capacity and a significant share of the relevant data are held primarily by the state or a system under its control.

This question carries additional weight where public authority itself actively promoted the medical intervention and guided people’s decisions through extensive informational, regulatory, financial and social influence.

In such circumstances, it is not legally convincing to retreat, when a possible serious consequence occurs, to the mere assertion that the person “consented voluntarily”.

Consent alone cannot later serve as a general justification for declining to investigate substantively the causes of possible serious health damage.

If a person who has suffered serious health damage, or their relative, must first find experts, collect the necessary data, finance studies, identify a possible causal mechanism and only then seek a substantive response from the state, the legal remedy may remain purely formal.

An ordinary person does not have pharmacovigilance databases, an expert team or unlimited financial resources.

Serious health damage may then remain substantively uninvestigated, not because no possible link existed, but because the person was unable to prove it sufficiently on their own.

The question therefore arises whether Estonia had, and still has, a sufficiently effective and independent mechanism that is genuinely accessible to individuals for investigating serious health damage where a possible link to COVID-19 vaccination has been credibly raised.

I also request an assessment of whether, during or after the COVID-19 crisis, the Chancellor of Justice reviewed whether the system for investigating such cases met the requirements of genuine and effective legal protection and enabled the actual causes of serious health damage to be established without imposing a disproportionate burden of proof solely on the individual or their family.

13. The relationship between the individual, the people and the constitutional order

In addition to the possible interference with my specific rights, this matter raises a broader constitutional question about how narrowly an individual’s legitimate interest in drawing attention to a systemic fundamental-rights problem may be construed.

Under the Constitution, supreme state authority is vested in the people.

The people are not an abstraction separate from individuals, but consist of specific human beings. A systemic fundamental-rights problem therefore cannot be entirely separated from the legal position of the individuals through whom the people, as bearers of the constitutional order, actually exist.

If a method of state influence affects the whole of society or a significant part of it, it is illogical to treat the affected person’s legal position as wholly isolated from the position of the people as a constitutional subject.

Otherwise, a paradox arises.

On the one hand, the Constitution recognises the people as the bearers of supreme state authority and treats each individual as part of that people. On the other hand, an individual’s ability to draw attention to a fundamental-rights problem affecting society as a whole may depend on whether they can demonstrate sufficiently narrowly individualised and measurable personal harm.

Such an approach may make the review of systemic fundamental-rights problems unjustifiably difficult.

Section 54 of the Constitution imposes on Estonian citizens a duty to be loyal to the constitutional order.

This duty cannot be understood merely as passive loyalty to public authority.

The constitutional order and individual decisions of public authority are not the same thing.

A citizen may be loyal to the constitutional order precisely by criticising actions of public authority which, in their assessment, depart from the Constitution, human dignity or the objective of protecting fundamental rights.

One expression of loyalty to the constitutional order may therefore be a citizen’s active willingness to draw attention to possible systemic violations and to use the legal remedies provided by law for that purpose.

This raises the question whether it is justified to construe the protection of individual rights so narrowly that a person must always prove harm that is personal and separable from that of others, even where the contested state method of influence targeted a large group and affected society as a whole.

Constitutional protection must not place an individual in a position where, on the one hand, they are treated as a bearer of the constitutional order and a citizen owing loyalty to it, but, on the other hand, their legitimate interest in raising a systemic constitutional question is not recognised until they can prove sufficiently narrowly individualised harm to a specific legal interest.

Such an approach would paradoxically turn the protection of the constitutional order into a monopoly of public authority itself.

The purpose of the constitutional order cannot be that the state reviews its own actions only to the extent determined by the state itself, while a citizen has no substantive opportunity to raise a systemic issue until a violation has already materialised against them with sufficient intensity or even irreversibly.

In the present matter, however, this question is not merely abstract.

I have already described specific consequences that the COVID-19 measures and public influence had for me.

I am therefore asking the Chancellor of Justice to assess not only a general societal question, but both the possible interference with my own individual rights and the broader constitutional problem revealed by it.

It is artificial to separate these two levels completely.

Where the same state method of influence affects a large number of specific individuals simultaneously, the general constitutional problem is formed precisely through interferences with individual rights.

The constitutional status of the people as a whole cannot be considered separately from the rights of the individuals of whom the people consist.

I therefore also request an assessment of the broader question of whether, and to what extent, an individual as a member of the people and a bearer of the constitutional order must be able to apply to a constitutional institution for review of a systemic fundamental-rights problem, and whether an excessively narrow interpretation of individual rights may itself reduce the actual effectiveness of constitutional review.

14. This concerns official duties, not Ülle Madise personally

I wish to emphasise separately that this application does not concern Ülle Madise personally or her political or private views.

It concerns the performance of the duties of a constitutional office.

The Chancellor of Justice is entitled to change her positions in light of new information and to refine earlier assessments.

However, if, after the crisis, the Chancellor of Justice treats governance and manipulation through fear in the context of COVID-19 as a problem, there is a justified need to explain how that assessment relates to the actions of the Chancellor of Justice while the phenomenon was taking place.

A public official’s later position may differ from their earlier actions, but in such a case the difference must be capable of substantive and verifiable explanation.

Otherwise, the question arises whether constitutional review fulfilled its purpose when people needed it most.

15. Questions which I request the Chancellor of Justice to answer

I request that the Chancellor of Justice:

1. explain the specific facts and analyses on the basis of which she refers in 2026 to the COVID-19 crisis in the context of governance and manipulation through fear;
2. explain whether she identified the same problem during the COVID-19 crisis itself;
3. if so, specify which proceedings, proposals, memoranda or other legal remedies were used in relation to that phenomenon;
4. if the problem was not identified in that form during the crisis, explain what new information or analysis has led the Chancellor of Justice to a different assessment now;
5. assess whether influencing people’s vaccination decisions through fear, employment-related consequences, loss of income, paid testing or social restrictions may have constituted an interference with the rights protected by sections 19, 26 and 28 of the Constitution;
6. assess whether, in particularly serious individual cases, the intensity and cumulative effect of the pressure may also have raised the question of the applicability of section 18 of the Constitution and Article 3 of the ECHR;
7. assess whether, in considering the voluntary nature of vaccination, people’s genuine freedom of will was examined in addition to formal voluntariness;
8. explain whether the cumulative effect of different restrictions, testing, financial burdens and public social pressure simultaneously imposed on a person’s freedom of choice was assessed;
9. assess whether COVID-19 measures were subject to sufficiently individualised and person-specific proportionality review;
10. explain whether the justification for treating vaccinated and unvaccinated people differently was regularly reviewed throughout the restrictions in light of evolving scientific knowledge;
11. assess whether the consent procedure used for COVID-19 vaccination ensured substantively informed and voluntary consent, or whether it may in certain cases have been limited merely to the formal documentation of consent;
12. explain how situations were assessed in which some possible adverse reactions and risks of vaccines emerged or were clarified only after the vaccination campaign had begun, and how a person could in such circumstances give informed consent to knowledge that did not yet exist at the time;
13. explain the actual duty and capacity of those administering vaccinations or obtaining consent to provide individuals with personalised information about their risks, possible adverse reactions, scientific uncertainty and alternatives;
14. assess whether the labelling and ridicule, in communication by public authorities, health experts and public-service media, of unvaccinated people or people considering alternative treatments may, together with other restrictions, have affected genuine freedom of will and the exercise of fundamental rights;
15. explain whether the institution of the Chancellor of Justice considers its actions during the COVID-19 crisis sufficiently effective in light of current knowledge and the Chancellor of Justice’s own publicly expressed positions of 18 September 2026;
16. assess whether, following the ECtHR judgment of 16 July 2026 in S.T. v. the Czech Republic, there is reason to analyse further the effectiveness in Estonia of investigations into credible allegations of serious ill-treatment connected with state pressure mechanisms used during the COVID-19 crisis;
17. assess whether an excessively narrow interpretation of individual rights may itself reduce the effectiveness of constitutional review where the same state method of influence affects a large number of people simultaneously;
18. if the Chancellor of Justice finds that her previous actions were insufficient in any of the matters listed above, explain what measures can now be taken to assess the situation substantively and prevent similar problems in the future.

The central question of this application is simple.

If, in 2026, the Chancellor of Justice treats governance and manipulation through fear during the COVID-19 crisis as a problem, it must be explained at the constitutional level what this meant precisely and how the institution of the Chancellor of Justice responded.

On the one hand, it is not justified to claim that all COVID-19 restrictions or measures promoting vaccination were therefore automatically unconstitutional.

On the other hand, it is equally insufficient to state that, because the objective of the measures was to protect public health, there is no longer any need to examine the manner in which they were applied or their consequences.

The very purpose of fundamental-rights review is to ensure that, even in pursuit of a legitimate objective, the necessity, suitability and proportionality of the means used—and their actual impact on people—are examined.

In my case, this is not merely an abstract question.

My refusal of vaccination resulted in repeated paid and physically unpleasant testing, financial burdens, social restrictions, social pressure and unwanted labelling.

I therefore request an assessment not only of each measure separately but also of their combined effect.

One test, one restriction or one public message may appear to have little impact when viewed in isolation.

However, when different measures operate together so that consenting to vaccination reduces restrictions while refusal results in repeated testing, financial costs, limited opportunities to participate in ordinary social life and social pressure, their combined impact on a person’s genuine freedom of choice must be assessed.

Nor can informed consent be reduced merely to a person’s signature.

A signature may demonstrate that consent was documented, but does not in itself prove that the person was given all material information available at the time, that the limits and uncertainty of knowledge were explained, or that the decision was made without impermissible external pressure.

If governance through fear is regarded as a problem today, it must be assessed whether it was also a problem when it was employed and whether constitutional oversight responded to it effectively enough.

Proceedings are not an end in themselves. Legal protection must be effective.

Yours faithfully,

Raivo Aleksander Paala