The Constitutional Obligation of the State to Protect the Weaker Party in a Horizontal Relationship

The aim of this paper is to present how the State’s obligation to protect the weaker party in a horizontal relationship can be reconstructed from the provisions of the constitution. The paper outlines the concept of the protective obligations of the State as well as the peculiarities of the horizontal relationships. It deals with normative grounds for the general obligation to protect an individual by the State and for the specific protective obligations with respect to particular rights and freedoms. The analysis is primarily based on the constitutional provisions of Visegrad Group countries and includes the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The paper concludes that conflicts of the State’s protective obligations resulting from conflicts of the rights and freedoms of individuals should be resolved in the same way in which the theory of law recommends resolving conflicts of constitutional principles.