Reconciling Extraordinary Situations without Declaring a State of Emergency: the Risks of Normalization and Routinization

The article is devoted to the problem of the emergency and possible scenarios of government behavior in such conditions. Having briefly described the emergency per se, the author identifies two approaches to resolving crisis situations — declaring versus not declaring a state of emergency — and examines the problems that may arise in each of the identified cases. The use of the administrative regime of the state of emergency in fact entails the concentration of power in the hands of the executive bodies, which, bypassing complex law-making procedures with the participation of the representative bodies, establish general rules of behavior during this regime. Hence — the threat of power abuse by the executive branch, which may try to retain emergency measures as permanent ones. However, the institution of the state of emergency itself contains certain restrictions that complicate such a scenario. The situation is different with the approach to resolve crisis situations that does not involve declaring a state of emergency and focuses on the use of mechanisms within the ordinary law. At first glance, this approach seems to be more mild and safe, since it is not associated with the deformation of human rights and freedoms and the suspension of the institutions of direct and representative democracy. But, as the author demonstrates, it contains much more serious risks than the first option, the most important of which is the risk of normalizing and routinizing emergency measures and turning them into everyday legal practice.