Impact of Human Rights on Private Law in Lithuania and Other European Countries: Problematic Aspects

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the problem how and to what extent human rights affect the relationships between private parties and what consequences this effect has for the development of private law in Lithuania and other European countries. Because Lithuanian legal doctrine lacks relevant research on this subject-matter, the author seeks to start and invoke the beginning of conceptual academic discourse on the matter. It is argued that despite the fact that in many countries the impact (whether direct or indirect) of human rights on private law has recently become a powerful means of developing the law, the application of human rights in private law has not only its positive side but it also invokes very serious problems to be solved and raises conceptual questions that should be answered. Thus, in order to ensure stable, reliable and respectable development of influence of human rights on private law as a beneficial tool to protect human rights in certain cases, there is a need for continuous, complex and multi-level academic conceptual comparative studies of the issue in order to answer how to reconcile the constitutionalisation of private law with the principles of legal certainty and proportionality and what are the criteria for the limits of the effect of human rights on private law in order to ensure a fair balance, protect stability and predictability in law.