The Evolution of the Legal Institute of Convalidation of Null and Void Contracts in the Yugoslav Legal Tradition: Historical Influences and Legal Legacy

Contract law is fundamentally shaped by the tension between fairness and enforceability, a balance that defective contracts often disrupt. While formal requirements are introduced above else to safeguard public policy goals—such as ensuring legal certainty—subsequent validation of defective contracts (convalidation) serves to rectify them, primarily focusing on the private interests of the parties involved. This paper examines the role of convalidation in Yugoslav contract law, a common legal tradition shared by West-Balkan countries that formerly belonged to the SFRY, tracing its development in the context of legal pluralism and the political transformations of the era. It further explores the contemporary implementation of convalidation across the successor states: Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Through the lens of the 1978 federal Obligations Act, the paper investigates the historical evolution of contract law in these states, questioning whether local legal traditions, influenced by regional legal particularities, have shaped the application of convalidation in divergent or uniform ways. The study clarifies the concept of 'convalidation,' which, while not always explicitly mentioned in legal texts, has been a part of the legal framework, primarily applied to voidable contracts and, less commonly, to irremediable, null and void contracts. It facilitates their transformation into valid contracts, allowing them to produce legal effects previously unavailable to them, if specific conditions are met. By exploring the flexibility of convalidation and its aim to vindicate both on both private and public interests, the paper sheds light on how it contributes to fairness and legal certainty in the legal systems of post-Yugoslav states. The research is structured around three historical periods, reflecting key socio-political shifts in the region, to trace the evolution of convalidation in the common Yugoslav legal tradition.