Balancing Public and Private Interests Amidst Mutual Limitations

Mutual limitations pose an interesting question: can states, businesses, and citizens continue to rely on basic guarantees enshrined at the national and international legal levels, such as inviolability of property, fair trial, inviolability of contract, and freedom of economic activity? These and other principles have come to be considered the basics in the rule of law, a decision-making factor for investors and other stakeholders. However, restrictive measures, usually considered an exception, are now leaving less and less room for general rules, abolishing what was once regarded as immutable. At a time when restrictive measures are rapidly changing the content of the law, the state and law practitioners face the challenge of maintaining understandable rules for market participants: not necessarily the same as before, but stable, predictable, and realistic. In order to articulate these rules, it is necessary to evaluate the fundamental system of coordinates for the legal regulation of relations in the current new normality. What should this new system be guided by? What can be placed in its foundation? What constraints should ensure balanced regulation? Balancing public and private interests is a topic of legal debate that has been recurring from one era to another, each time with a new angle. The current galloping growth of reciprocal restrictive measures shows that it seems to be time to talk about this balance again.