Causa of contractual obligations as a precondition for valid formation of a mutually binding contract

Abstract

The causa of a contractual obligation is one of the most obscure and controver-sial institutes of the civil law of obligations. The emergence of this institute may be traced back to Roman law but the concept of causa was first systematically present by the French jurist Jean Domat, who is considered to be the founder of the classical theory of causa. Under the influence of the French Civil Code, the Serbian legal order falls into causalistic legal orders. In Serbian law, the basic and most important provisions on causa are contained in relevant articles of the Civil Obligations Act which refer to the legal ground of contractual obligation and the motive for concluding a contract. In this Act, the legislator adopted the so-called objective-subjective understanding of causa. Although the expectations from the causa perceived in the objective sense may have been high, its inclusion among the prerequisites for valid formation of a binding contract had almost no effect on the judicial practice. In this paper, the author analyzes the usefulness of both concepts of causa of contractual obligations in mutually binding contracts . Considering the fact that there is no common agreement in legal theory on the concept of this civil law institute, the first part of the paper is presents the theories on the causa of a contractual obligation. The central part of the paper examines the usefulness of the causa of a contractual obligation as a precondition for valid formation of mutually binding contracts.