Cause, consideration and the purpose of contract law

of the Master thesis This Master thesis deals with an institute of the Czech contract law - kauza (causa). The example of kauza (and consideration) illustrate the tendency of legal systems to keep institutes once they have been created, even at the cost of inconsistent changes in their definition, purpose or function. The original meaning of the institutes is continuously blurred which makes it difficult to assess whether their use in the current legal system is substantiated. The main purpose of the thesis is to contribute to a clarification of the real function of kauza in the Czech contract law. Unlike in foreign legal publications, kauza is rather marginalized in Czech legal writings. Authors that deal with the problems of kauza (at least to some extend) often come to mutually exclusive/ inconsistent conclusions. The classical doctrine of causa makes little sense in the consensual concept of contract that seems to be favored in the Czech legal theory. Namely, the requirement of kauza appears to be additional to a requirement of consensus of the parties. Such theoretical discrepancy may be one of the reasons why the meaning of kauza in the Czech law is still unclear. Contract theories facilitate a deeper understanding of contracts, contract law and its particular institutes. However, the Czech..