Abstract:

This paper examines the relations between the execution of public services and economic freedoms, which are minimum normative requirements for individuals in a functioning market economy. Economic freedoms are recognized as a category, consisting of property rights, freedom of contract, right to work, and freedom of private enterprises. The relations between economic freedoms and public services incite normative tensions. This paper indicates that the public service law introduces a restriction on economic freedoms in each case. However, provision of public services as a broad category or execution of public services by the public sector crystallizes this effect. In case of public services run by private law agents, in addition to the intervention to economic freedoms, social functions of rights that are stipulated by the norms in the Constitution prevail. In other words, the current public service law ensures the rights of private law persons to execute public services, despite the fact that it almost disable the normative protection envisaged for economic freedoms.

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