Donee's ingratitude: How the judicial practice amended the legislation

Although contracts are generally irrevocable, the donor may revoke the donation contract due to the donee's ingratitude. Such circumstances gives rise to an inevitable dispute between the contracting parties, which is commonly resolved in civil litigation proceedings. Given the fact that formal sources of law cannot predict all forms of donee's ingratitude, courts have a creative role in revocation lawsuits. While trying to fill unavoidable legislative gaps, the courts of the former Yugoslav republics have developed the legal standard of 'gross ingratitude', which has been successfully used in the judicial practice. This paper focuses on 24 judgments dealing with different aspects of donee's ingratitude: the relationship between ingratitude and criminal liability; the degrees of ingratitude; the donee's omission which is detrimental to the donor; ingratitude manifested over a longer period of time; and revocation provoked by interference of third parties