BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

society away from atrocity and callousness toward a more just and inclusive future.’ 4 Shortly after World War II, Gustav Radbruch , a prominent German legal theorist and representative of post-war non-positivism, connects human rights with morality in his (rather programmatic) inaugural speech on the occasion of his appointment to the position of dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Heidelberg. 5 The tradition of connecting human rights to morality continues until today in many constitutions, including the Czech one, which refers to natural rights of human beings in its preamble. 6 The key question that I would like to address in this contribution is: To what extent shall the process of constitutionalisation transform private law? The answer to this question will not be descriptive, but rather a normative one. First of all, in order to find the proper role of constitutional law in private law one has to choose among various ‘readings’ of the doctrine of constitutionalisation. On the one hand, there are robust theories such as the project of a total constitution described by Mattias Kumm , 7 or second generation of constitutionalism, in which an ideal of limited government is being replaced by optimal government as argued by Alexander Somek 8 ; on the other hand, a rather limited role may be ascribed to the process of constitutionalisation. The structure of my arguments will be the following: firstly, I will illustrate on a recent example regarding internet companies and how corporations exercise social power vis- à-vis individuals; therefrom follows the need to hold corporations accountable for violations of fundamental rights. In the second and third part, I will describe the position of corporations as duty-bearers and on the other hand as holders of fundamental rights. The final part addresses the related problem of the over-constitutionalisation of law, and possible solutions of how to prevent this over-constitutionalisation in order to maintain principles of private law. The aim of this contribution shall be to argue that neither the total constitutionalism nor the total absence of the horizontal effect of fundamental rights constitutes a proper model of constitutionalisation. 4 SILIQUINI-CINELLI, L., HUTCHINSON, A.: Introduction. In: SILIQUINI-CINELLI, L., HUTCHIN- SON, A. (eds.): The Constitutional Dimension of Contract Law. A Comparative Perspective . Dordrecht: Springer, 2017, p. vii. 5 RADBRUCH, G.: Die Erneuerung des Rechts. In: RADBRUCH, G., KAUFMANN, A. (ed.): Gesamtausgabe. Band 3. Rechtsphilosophie III. , Heidelberg: C. F. Müller, 1990, p. 108. ‘Die Rechtsissenschaft muß sich wieder auf die jahrtausendalte gemeinsame Weisheit der Antike des christlichen Mittelalters und des Zeitalters der Aufklärung besinnen, daß es ein höheres Recht gebe als das Gesetz, ein Naturrecht, ein Gottesrecht, ein Vernunftrecht, kurz ein übergesetzliches Recht, an dem gemessen das Unrecht Unrecht bleibt, auch wenn es in die Form des Gesetzes gegossen ist.’, 6 The text of the Preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Czech Republic, adopted as a resolution of the Presidium of the Czech National Council of 16 December 1992, Constitutional Act Nr. 2/1993 Coll. begins as follows: ‘The Federal Assembly, […] Recognizing the inviolability of the natural rights of man, the rights of citizens, and the sovereignty of the law,…‘ English version available at: https://www.usoud.cz/fileadmin/user_upload/ustavni_soud_www/Pravni_uprava/ AJ/Listina_English_version.pdf [accessed 12 February 2018]. 7 KUMM, M.: Who Is Afraid of the Total Constitution? Constitutional Rights as Principles and the Constitutionalization of Private Law. 7 German Law Journal , No. 4, 2006, pp. 341 – 370. 8 SOMEK, A.: The Cosmopolitan Constitution. In: MADURO, M., TUORI, K., SANKARI, S. (eds.): Transnational Law. Rethinking European Law and Legal Thinking . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 97-98.

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