Party to Contracts

Within traditional private law, contracts are the main legal instruments to exchange patrimonial elements, mainly obligations and property rights, from one subject to another. The position of the parties within the contract is characterised by at least three features: each party is expected to have interests different from those of the other party; the opposing interests of the parties must lead to a patrimonial balance, as a result of the exchange; the parties to a contract are considered to be formally equal, although they have different functions within the same contract. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the social and ideological context of private law changed substantially. Particularly after the first half of the twentieth century, the construction of the traditional private law was put into crisis as a result of two phenomena: constitutionalisation and European integration. Constitutions consider the fundamental rights of natural persons to be the centre of the legal system. In particular, those processes are affecting the traditional ideas concerning the parties to the contracts.