LEGAL PERSON (PERSONA FICTA) AS A HOLDER OF THE HUMAN RIGHT TO PRIVACY – IN SLOVENIA AND IN SOME COMPARATIVE LEGAL SYSTEMS

Abstract

The right to privacy – representing a delimited sphere and/or space that is not public and where individuals can, without external influences, freely realize their right to form their personality – is one of the most important human rights guaranteed by democratic constitutions to individuals, i.e. natural persons who are, in principle, fundamental holders of human rights. However, at the constitutional level the question arises as to what extent human rights can be extended to legal persons, these being artificial forms created by legal order, in general (the theory of piercing the corporate veil is mentioned in this regard), and as regards the right to privacy in particular. In the article the author presents the case-law of some states on whether or not legal persons are recognized as holders of human rights to privacy and, if so, to what extent, with a special view to the decision of the Slovene Constitutional Court (decision No U-I-40/12), which, along the lines of foreign legal systems, recognizes legal persons’ privacy of communication and privacy of space, although less intensely as individuals’.