Austrian Civil Code as source for the Serbian Civil Code / Austrijski građanski zakonik kao izvornik srpskog građanskog zakonika

Abstract

Serbian Civil Code has been adopted 167 years ago, at 1844. It was fourth civil code enacted in Europe, based on a Austrian Civil Code it inducted Serbia into the German legal circle. Some of the rules of the Serbian Civil Code, such as those that are regulating institute of gift, are still used as a part of positive law. Let that be only one of the proofs of this Code’s actuality.
Common opinion of our legal theory is that Serbian Civil Code is only the shortened version of it’s source. It has 950 paragraphs while, at the some time, Austrian Civil Code has 1502. There are some similarities, they are great, except in the parts that regulates family law and inheritance law, where some of the characteristics of Serbian social relations comes out ate the first plan. Researches that has been conducted until now have never give the deeper analyzes of the differences and digressions from the source Code, and also never emphasized some permanent values of Serbian Civil Code.
All of the mentioned are the reasons why I would try to point out some differences that Serbian Civil Code has when it’s compared to it’s source, but without any underestimating of the importance of Austrian Civil Code, and the fact that source code is in the great part „transplatated“ in the Serbia Civil Code.