Administrative Contracts in Serbian Law – Specificities of the New Statutory Regime

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the special legal regime for administrative contracts under the recently enacted Serbian Law on General Administrative Procedure of 2016. We offer a comprehensive analysis of the new statutory rules, and examine their relationship to the general rules and principles of Serbian contract law. In addition, we identify the main shortcomings of the new regime, especially in the context of the lack of any statutory, scholarly and judicial typology of administrative contracts in Serbia. Furthermore, we highlight the lack of references to the notions of public interest, public purpose or public needs in the statutory definition of administrative contracts. This is cause for concern, since only the need to protect the public interest could justify the new statutory provisions, which significantly improve the contractual position of a public body as a contracting party in relation to the position of a private entity as the other party in administrative contracts. There is as yet no case law pertaining to administrative contracts in Serbia. This is why we turn to practical experience in the Croatian legal system, which is sufficiently similar and historically connected to Serbia via a shared Yugoslav heritage. We also consider German and French legal models, since they traditionally serve as comparative points of reference for Serbian legal scholars, judges and law makers.