DERIVING FROM THE BASIC LEGAL AND DEMOCRATIC RULE OF THE STATE AND THE RIGHT OF THE PERSON IN PRINCIPLE TO CARRY OUT MATERIAL-LEGAL CLAIMS ONLY IN PART AS AN EXPRESSION OF A LEGAL AND DEMOCRATIC STATE

In the article, the author looks at the origin of the principle of the private autonomy from the point of view of the basic normal theory, stating that the basic legal and democratic norms of the country are derived from the rule of law. Moreover, the private autonomy also includes, in principle, the right of a person to exercise the right to carry out material legal claims, even in part, if the person so wishes.

Regulation of Triage in Times of a Pandemic: Experiences from Slovenia (and Beyond)

The article offers an overview of legal regulations governing (medical) triage in Slovenia and their importance in times of the Covid-19 epidemic. Focusing on the Patients’ Rights, Health Care and Health Insurance, Medical Services, and Health Services Act, it looks at ways in which legal rules and medical standards intertwine when it comes to deciding who should receive particular limited medical treatment first or in what order. It also deals with ways in which professional rules of conduct or medical standards may, on the one hand, exclude the unlawfulness of particular conduct, and how, on the other hand, law may limit the autonomy of medical practitioners. Both the autonomy in their professional conduct as well as healthcare providers’, but especially professional organizations’ law-making autonomy. Even if grounded in the Slovenian legal order, the present article by nature surpasses its domestic boundaries, since the Covid-19 epidemic created similar issues in several if not in all European jurisdictions. Even more so, since the article addresses several general challenges concerning triage in times or moments of crisis, such as state’s positive obligations, recognition of patients’ private autonomy, medical treatment abroad, ethical deliberations concerning a just distribution of scarce medical services, etc.

Justice in Contract, no Justice in the Background

In the first part of his book, Peter Benson elaborates for the common law that fairness in exchange is not only a fundamental principle of contract law, but that it is, moreover, conceptually rooted in the idea of private autonomy. For the common law presumes that a party to a contract intends, in principle, to exchange performance at its value and on fair terms. The following comment shows that this presumption also animates German contract law, including the rules on the review of standard terms. In the second part, Benson develops the image of a harmonious complementarity of private law, which is characterised by transactional justice, and public law, which instantiates distributive justice. The following comment disputes the claimed harmony by demonstrating the fundamental asymmetry in the institutionalisation of both forms of justice in civil society.

Machine Acting and Contract Law – The Disruptive Factor of Artificial Intelligence for the Freedom Concept of the Private Law

Technologic evolutions of the last two decades, such as the development of the internet, had a strong disruptive effect to the society and the economy. However, because of the flexible concepts of the civil law codifications a disruptive effect in the private law until now did not exist. Especially the legal consequences of the internet were integrated into the private law without bigger categorial or structural changes. This applies equally to most of the cases of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent times. With more advanced development of AI-systems, though, it may not be possible anymore to apply the traditional terms of the private law to the use of AI without leaving the constitutional law background of the private law. This article discusses the impact of the use of a future advanced independent AI on the concept of the private autonomy in the contract law. Furthermore, it gives an overview on the new legislative approach of a human centric use of AI in the European Union.

Making work private: Autonomy, intensification and accountability

This paper explores perceptions of work intensification around the world. Underpinning this analysis is C. Wright Mills’ (1959) argument that many personal troubles are public issues, and the notion that a significant dimension of the privatisation of public education, a concern of public education advocates worldwide, is the ways in which school work has become a private issue. One hundred and thirty interviews were conducted with education stakeholders across Australia, England, New Zealand and Canada exploring the issues of work intensification, school autonomy and accountability policies. The paper argues that the work done in public schools is increasingly becoming a private problem as a result of policy interventions. It suggests that we need to widen the scope of defining publicness in education beyond that of governance and funding to include consideration of how work is organised and experienced.