Our View: Volte face on churches makes a mockery of lockdown policy

The slapdash way in which the government has dealt with the latest lockdown that came into force on Monday has undermined the whole exercise including its arguments for justifying the decision.

How did it hope to persuade people that a full lockdown was imperative when a few hours after the minister of health announced the restrictions, the presidency changed the cabinet decision on church services?

All public gatherings were banned by the decrees, but people were free to gather in the grounds of churches in order to follow Holy Week services. While state permission to go outdoors was restricted to once a day, for a maximum duration of three hours, no SMS authorisation was needed to go to this week’s church service; thousands of churchgoers were thus granted three exits per day (two church services per day not needing authorisation) and for two of those they would be joining public gatherings.

Is this how the government enforces its stringent measures to stop the rapid spread of the virus? By allowing public gatherings outside churches and permitting some people to leave their homes three times a day and for longer than the maximum of three hours? The decree had also banned people from being inside church during the service, but it was subsequently overruled, the presidency saying a maximum of 50 could be inside as long as they had received one vaccination, a minimum of three weeks earlier.

This exposes the bizarre superficiality of the government decision-making. There are big questions marks about the legality of this requirement and there is also an issue over who will enforce it. Church officials have no legal authority to demand vaccination certificates from any citizen, and we doubt there will be police officers at every church to ensure enforcement of the decree. The church leadership has stated it will ignore the limit on the number people inside the church and will not seek a vaccination certificate.

Of course, the government did not give much thought to its action. It imposed the 50-people limit and the vaccination certificate requirement as a way of defending its indefensible inconsistency in allowing public gatherings inside and outside churches at a time of a full lockdown. There can be no gatherings of more than two people anywhere outdoors, but 100 or 200 people can gather outside a church every night this week!

This was the act of a government that does not know what it is doing, a government that is going out of its way to make a mockery of its own policy, which involves a strict lockdown on everyone, except churchgoers.