BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

depends on the solution to the conflict between the two. This constitutes what I call an analogy between communicating vessels: if corporations had no rights, any rights of natural persons (human beings) would trump corporations’ claims, and vice versa, the more rights will be acknowledged in the corporations, the fewer situations shall occur in which the countervailing individual rights of natural person shall prevail. At the same time, we must bear in mind that if fundamental rights are granted to a legal person, specific people always stand behind a legal person and they are the ones who ultimately benefit from the protection of the fundamental rights of a legal person. Consequently, protection of fundamental rights of a legal person can serve as a means of protecting other, e.g. economic, interests. 26 As a matter of fact, in the 1990s the Czech Republic had a similar experience with international investment treaties, which were drafted unfavourably for the state and often resulted in the duty to compensate the damage caused by failed investments. A related issue pertains to the above-mentioned social and economic power of certain legal persons (especially transnational corporations) – if such persons successfully claim their fundamental rights, this logically only further increases their strength. All this suggests that contrary to the mainstream point of view, not only the prospects of the process of constitutionalisation of private law but also the process of limiting the constitutionalisation needs to be addressed. The problem of over-constitutionalisation of law The issue of limits of constitutionalisation is rather unresearched but seems quite topical. I will try to illustrate this problem, which I will call the ‘over-constitutionalisation of law’, in the following examples from the Czech Republic: In 2012, Czech Railways, a state-owned company operating trains in the Czech Republic, set up special compartments for women. The official reason was to enhance the safety for women travelling alone especially in evenings and nights. On the other hand, it must also be mentioned the economic aim to attract female passengers in order to generate more profit. After introducing the compartments for women, Czech Railways was criticized for alleged discrimination against men who were not allowed to use them. But as a matter of fact, men could only be asked to leave these compartments when there were other vacant seats on the train; otherwise they were allowed to remain seated in the women compartments. 27 A certain problem might however be seen in the fact that the claimed protection of women is based on the stereotype of men as potential aggressors. 28 Another issue concerned the practice of some Czech banks who provided loans for citizens who reached a certain age. The case involved a bank in which it was impossible 26 Klaus Stern refers in this respect to the protection of a natural person wearing the “clothes” of a juristic person – STERN, K. et al.: Das Staatsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Band III/1, Allgemeine Lehren der Grundrechte . Mnichov: C. H. Beck, 1988, p. 1088. 27 See e.g. statement of the press secretary of Czech Railways Company available at: https://ekonomika.idnes. cz/zenska-kupe-ve-vlacich-ceskych-drah-dum-/eko-doprava.aspx?c=A140821_121145_eko-doprava_spi [accessed 13 February 2018]. 28 KVASNICOVÁ, J., ŠAMÁNEK, J. a kol.: Antidiskriminační zákon. Komentář . [ Antidiscrimination Act. A Commentary .] Prague: Wolters Kluwer, 2015, p. 241.

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