НЕУТРАЛНИ ПРАВНИ ПОСЛОВИ
NEUTRAL LEGAL TRANSACTIONS

Summary/Abstract: Under Article 64 of the Serbian Family Law Act (2005), a minor can independently undertake neutral legal transactions (neutrale Rechtsgeschäfte), i.e. the transactions by which he or she does not assume any rights or obligations. This rule, shaped after a similar rule of German law, caused a number of controversies amongst Serbian lawyers and legal scholars. While some of them negate the idea of neutral legal transaction, claiming that it represents a contradiction in terms; others do not reject the notion of neutral legal transactions, but have no settled catalogue of the legal transactions which qualify as neutral. The author offers a scrupulous and detailed comparative analysis of the rules on, and theoretical readings of, the neutral legal transactions; and lays open some practical situations in which these rules may apply. The author disapproves of the way in which the abovementioned rule of Serbian law is phrased, and argues that the term „neutral legal transaction“ should correspond to a legal transaction which does not produce any relevant legal advantage or disadvantage to the person who is undertaking it. The focal point of the notion of neutral legal transactions is the absence of any relevant legal benefits or drawbacks to the subject entering into such transaction, and not merely the fact that he or she does not assume any rights or obligations.

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