LEGAL NATURE OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT CONTRACTS IN THE CROATIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

Legal nature of public procurement contracts that has not been regulated by the Public Procurement Act depends on whether the public procurement contract belongs to the legal regime of administrative contracts or to that of civil law. This issue is particularly topical in the Croatian legal theory because public procurement contracts have appeared as a type of public law contracts. Public law contracts need to be regulated separately since public bodies in modern states increasingly often enter into legal relations with other subjects via contracts, not only via administrative acts. Legal regulation of the public procurement contract is essential for solving the dilemmas and issues related to contracts signed in the public procurement procedures after the decision on public procurement has become enforceable. Such a decision has an immediate legal effect. The paper aims at answering the dilemma of legal nature of the public procurement contract and suggests that the existing regulation of that type of contract is closer to the legal regime of civil (private) law than to that of administrative (public) law.