Restitucija i građanskopravna odgovornost zbog povrede subjektivnih prava
Restitution And Civil Liability For Infringement Of Subjective Rights

Summary/Abstract: Transfer of assets between two or more parties may arise from a variety of distinctive facts, some of which are based on the parties' will (usually contractual will) while others are fully unrelated or even contrary to their will. In situations where this patrimonial transfer constitutes a loss for one party and an unjustified gain for another (either ill-founded or fully unjustified), the legal order demands that the enriched party shall return the unjustly acquired benefit and thus re-establish the prior state of affairs. The legal rules governing the re-establishment of patrimonial rights and interests constitute a legal institute called restitution. In this article, restitution is perceived as a specific instrument for the enforcement of civil liability and its sanction, in cases where both liability and sanction are a reaction to the unjustified shift of benefit from one party to another. The author examines the most common legal grounds for seeking restitution: unjustified (unjust) enrichment and the reversal of performances rendered under a void, voidable or unilaterally breached contract, but also points out that restitutionary rules can also be applied for recovering benefit acquired by infringement of one's absolute rights (instead of rules on damages). Although these legal relations pertain to different parts of the law of obligations, their common denominators are: the unjustified acquisition of benefit (unjust enrichment) and the duty of the enriched party to reverse the enrichment to the disadvantaged (impoverished) party who is entitled to it. The primary aim of all restitution claims is the reversal of unjustly acquired benefit and this goal is accomplished by applying the restitutionary rules. We think that adjusting these rules to the characteristics of a specific legal relation does not undermine the cohesion of restitution as a legal institute, which is ensured by its common purpose - restitutio in integrum.

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