LEGISLATION OF THE PRINCIPALITY OF SERBIA AS A SEGMENT OF THE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN LEGAL SYSTEMS
LEGISLATION OF THE PRINCIPALITY OF SERBIA AS A SEGMENT OF THE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN LEGAL SYSTEMS

Summary/Abstract: From the Hatt-i Sharif of 1830 to the attainment of independence in 1878, the Principality of Serbia gradually built its statehood through the adoption of modern legislation. This paper aims to highlight the key features of that developmental path—what some authors have referred to as the “Westernization of Serbia.” The inevitable influence of European legal systems and legislative models (such as the Serbian Civil Code and the Criminal Code) was accompanied by the equally inevitable creation of sui generis laws, for which no foreign models existed, yet which proved essential at that particular stage of Serbia’s social evolution (for example, various decrees and statutes in the field of commercial law). All these processes unfolded within the framework of Serbian constitutions, which themselves reflected European constitutional solutions—some successfully, others less so when applied to Serbian society in its process of modern state-building.

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