While making his ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, Justice John Harlan (as cited in Gostin, 2004) provided what can be considered a basis for a theory regarding public health and the law:
“Liberty does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members…A fundamental principle of the social compact is that the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good, and that government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor or private interests of any one man, family or class of men.”
Justice John Harlan (1905)
Drawing on Mr. Justice Harlan, Gostin (2004) has defined public health law as follows:
“The study of the legal powers and duties of the state to promote the conditions for people to be healthy (e.g., to identify, prevent, and ameliorate significant risks to health in the population) and the limitations on the power of the state to constrain the autonomy, privacy, liberty, proprietary, or other legally protected interests of individuals for the protection or promotion of community health.”
