What is CONVENTION

In Roman law. An agreement between parties; a pact. A convention was a mutual engagement between two persons, possessing all the subjective requisites of a contract, but which did not give rise to an action, nor receive the sanction of the law, as bearing an ” obligation ,” until the objective requisite of a solemn ceremonial, (such as stipulatio) was supplied. In other words, convention was the Informal agreement of the parties, which formed the basis of a contract, and which became a contract when the external formalities were superimposed. See Maine, Anc. Law, 313. “The division of conventions into contracts and pacts was important in the Roman law. The former were such conventions as already, by the older civil law, founded an obligation and action ; all the other conventions were termed ‘pacts.’ These generally did not produce an actionable obligation. Actionability was subsequently given to several pacts, whereby they received the same power and efficacy that contracts received.” Mackelden. Rom. I .aw,