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The author justifies the right of business entities to free economic initiative on the basis of the human right (hereinafter ‘HR’ or ‘HRs’) to liberty, and the right to positive discrimination of small and medium-sized enterprises (hereinafter ‘SMEs’) on the HR to equality, which is in the legal sense implemented by the HR to equal protection. Such positive discrimination ensures the equal protection of SMEs in the conditions of a free market (hereinafter ‘FM’) competition. Taking HRs as his starting points, the author discusses legal policy reasons that impose the duty to enact special measures in favour of SMEs on the legislature, and evaluates the legal sources in the Republic of Slovenia that regulate such measures. By means of the results obtained from a survey conducted with SMEs, the author examines the effects of measures to ensure the equal market position of SMEs, which in the conditions of economic globalisation enables a fair market game between SMEs and large enterprises, to ensure SMEs their existence and further development.

As opposed to authors who strive to justify the right of access to public passenger transport services of citizens predominantly on the principles of justice deriving from social ethics, the authors of this article justify the right of such access on the human rights to mobility and equality before the law, as the rights based on international legal acts, whereas the principles of fairness are used to upgrade the human right to equality and prohibition of discrimination. Based on the rights to mobility and equality before the law, the authors justify an obligation of democratic states to introduce a law to provide for people an adequate access to public passenger transport services at the interurban and urban level. The theoretical findings established herein will serve as a basis to evaluate legal regulations in the selected states (the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia), and create proposals to change the same.

In this paper the author substantiates a thesis that the reason for the emergence of the economic and general social crisis lies in the withdrawal of European countries from the legislatively proclaimed model of a social market state and the assumption of neoliberal principles, which are the basis of economic globalization. He finds that globalization gave rise to numerous negative social phenomena resulting from the predominance of the economic interests of capital over other social values. The reestablishment of the functioning of the market–social state in Europe that would be based on human rights could significantly contribute to the elimination of the causes of the crisis. The enforcement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Ruggi’s Guiding Principles) would mean the first step towards the change in principles and neoliberalism in the world and its negative effects.

The author of this article studies the boundaries of competences of the European Union in the field of public passenger transport regulation. It has been established that the European Union is limited only to competition protection in the EU single market and that member states are fully competent to regulate public passenger transport in compliance with their sovereign rights and responsibilities for exercising the human right to mobility. In its nature public passenger transport is a “merit good” (mixed public-private good), a commodity that can be provided in an optimal way under the condition that the state establishes mechanisms for balancing economic goals with other social goals (social values) when regulating and implementing public passenger transport. Member states can accomplish this task only by disregarding the requirements imposed by the EU in legal and political reform acts when individual social goals can be achieved only by an intervention in the economic functions of competition. The author justifies a legitimate right to waive on the bases of the legal system., Autor ovog članka proučava granice nadležnosti Europske unije na području uređenja javnog putničkog prijevoza. Utvrđuje da je Unija pritom ograničena samo na zaštitu konkurencije na jedinstvenom tržištu Europske unije te da su za uređenje javnog putničkog prijevoza u cijelosti nadležne države članice, sukladno svojim suverenim pravima i odgovornostima za ostvarivanje ljudskih prava državljana na mobilnost. Javni putnički prijevoz po svojoj je naravi “merit good” (mješovito, javno-privatno dobro), tj. dobro koje je moguće na optimalan način osigurati pod uvjetom da država pri uređenju i provođenju javnog putničkog prometa uspostavi mehanizme za usklađivanje ekonomskih ciljeva s drugim društvenim ciljevima (društvenim vrijednostima). Države članice taj svoj zadatak mogu ispuniti samo tako da, u slučaju kada se pojedini društveni ciljevi mogu osigurati samo zahvatom u ekonomske funkcije konkurencije, odustanu od zahtjeva koje im je u svojim pravnim i političkim reformnim aktima postavila Europska unija. Autor podržava legitimno pravo na odustajanje na sustavnim temeljima.

This article argues that the ECHR, acting as a part of the EU, and yet as a direct legal source, could be understood to act against legal articles. The EC is the result of three communities which originally only pursued economic aims. After the establishment of the community, Member States transformed into social market societies based on fundamental human rights. The communities survived only by adapting to these changes and by gradually adding the Convention rights and liberty-based aims of the society to their economic aims. A new form of integration has been created. Its competences have been limited by the competences transferred by Member States from their sovereign rights to the bodies of this community. By singular succession, the EU took over the position of Member States, and by taking over their competences it has also taken over Member States’ bonds to honour the Convention according to its requirements. The EU is engaged in protecting the rights and freedoms of legal subjects at the EU level. However, at their national level Member States, conform to the nature of human rights; and it is only possible to achieve conditional protection based on different facets of a particular society. This article considers societal aims of competition – especially the rights of market participants to equal opportunity in market entrance and market operations conditions by monitoring the pooling of economic subjects.