Steven Barrett

The new mask regime: a legal guide

Mask wearing has been compelled by law. Very soon the government has said that compulsion will end (in England at least). There is little in life more terrifying than being British and put in a new social situation without clear rules. So while we contemplate the dread of inevitably offending someone no matter what we do, it might be helpful to clarify what this means from the point of view of the law.

The first and most important point is that just because the government stops making mask wearing a legal requirement, that doesn’t mean that mask wearing stops being a legal requirement. Why?

Because our legal system gives lots of powers to people other than government. Most of the rules or obligations you follow in any given day won’t flow directly from government.

If the owner (or tenant) of a property sets a rule that you have to wear a mask then you have to

One of the obvious areas where masks could come back is private property. In our system, the landowner sets the law of their land. That is how banks ban the wearing of crash helmets or clubs I never went to ban people wearing certain clothes I probably never owned. Everyone knows that if the landlady of the pub says you are barred, you are.

So the idea that when the government goes away, we’ll somehow be a lawless state is a bit of a fantasy. We’ve never been a wild west — we have 800 years of settled law.

If the owner (or tenant) of a property sets a rule that you have to wear a mask then you have to. You will have to wear a mask on their land if they say so, like it or not, if you want to be on their land.

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