Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta u Nišu (Jan 2017)
Discrimination of legal entities: Phenomenological characteristics and legal protection
Abstract
Their social nature encourages people to associate and jointly achieve the goals that they would not be able to achieve individually. Legal entities are created as one of the legal modalities of that association, as separate entities that have their own legal personality independent of the subjectivity of their members. Legal entities are holders of some human rights, depending on the nature of the right, including the right to non-discrimination. All mechanisms envisaged for legal protection against discrimination in the national legislation are available to legal persons. On the other hand, the situation is quite different in terms of access to international forums competent to deal with cases of discrimination. Legal entities do not have access to some international forums, while they may have access to others under the same conditions prescribed for natural persons. Legal entities may be exposed to various forms of direct and indirect discrimination both in the private and in the public sphere of social relations. Phenomenological characteristics of discrimination against legal persons are not substantially different from discrimination against individuals. There are no significant differences regarding the application of discrimination test in cases of discrimination of legal entities as compared to the use of this test in cases involving discrimination of natural persons or groups of persons. Legal entities may be discriminated against on the basis of characteristics of their legal personality, such as those which are objective elements of the legal entity and part of its legal identity. Discrimination of legal entities may be based on personal characteristics of its members (i.e. people who make a personal essence of a legal entity) because their characteristics can be 'transferred' to the legal entity and become part of its identity. Legal entities should also be protected from this special form of transferred (associative) discrimination.
Keywords
