La volonté précontractuelle est le socle de la formation contractuelle. Au cours des négociations, les parties formulent leurs exigences et perfectionnent leurs volitions. Les manifestations de volonté à l’origine du contrat sont donc le fruit d’un processus volitif propre à chaque contractant. En dépit des apparences, le droit n’ignore pas le vouloir des parties au stade des négociations. Il s’intéresse aux mécanismes d’élaboration de cette volonté. La perception de la volonté précontractuelle est alors un enjeu essentiel dans la compréhension de l’acte qui en résulte. Il s’intéresse également aux manifestations de volonté. Celles-ci fixent ponctuellement le vouloir de leur auteur. Elles rassurent alors par leur perceptibilité. Toutefois, ces manifestations n’ont pas toujours la clarté attendue. En effet, le doute innerve la période précontractuelle et plus particulièrement les manifestations de volonté qui s’y développent. Confronté à cette difficulté, le droit doit s’adapter. Il entreprend donc de réagir en tentant d’adapter le résultat de ces manifestations. Ainsi, le contrat ne sera en définitive qu’une résurgence partielle des manifestations de volonté à son origine. Il peut par conséquent être appréhendé comme l’expression imparfaite des volontés précontractuelles à sa source. En somme, la frontière entre le précontractuel et le contractuel est ténue. L’analyse de la volonté précontractuelle et de ses manifestations va révéler les liens existant entre ces deux notions / The pre-contractual willingness is the basis of contractual training. During the negotiation, the parties draw up their requirements and develop their volitions. The demonstrations of willingness at the initiation of the contract are therefore the outcome of a volitional process for each contracting party. In spite of appearances, the legal entitlement does not ignore the will of contracting parties at the negotiating phase. It is interested in the mechanisms of elaboration of this willingness. The perception of the pre-contractual willingness is the essential stake throughout the apprehension stage of the final deed. It is highly concerned by the demonstration’s ways of a willingness. These delineate punctually the willingness of their originator. It reassures by their perceptibility. However, these manifestations are not always unambiguous like expected. Indeed, the doubt innervate the pre-contractual stage and more particularly the manifestation phase of a willingness which emerges here. Confronted with this challenge, the legal entitlement must adapts. It engages to react by trying to adapt the outcome of these manifestations. In this way, the contract will ultimately become a partial resurgence of the manifestation of veritable willingness. It can therefore be comprehended as the imperfect expression of pre-contractual willingness at its source. In essence, the border between the pre-contractual and the contractual is tenuous. The analysis of the pre-contractual willingness and its manifestations reveals the existing links between these two notions

The purpose of this thesis is to prove the existence of the right to adequate healthcare through a critical analysis of the law of obligations, constitutional law and international law framed in the wider focal point of South African medical law. The Constitution only makes provision for the right to access to health care. Conclusively this thesis will have to establish a link between a minimum standard in health care and the Constitution. It is submitted that the most efficacious method of establishing this link is with the duty of care, which is intrinsically linked to the doctor-patient relationship. If a critical analysis of the doctor-patient relationship can establish a clear link between the duty of care and state liability then such a link can successfully be applied to the Constitution. If this link is transposed onto the Constitution, a critical evaluation of the rights in the Bill of Rights will then reveal the most applicable right that can house the right to an adequate standard of health care. Such an analysis is only part of the solution however. In order to make this right effective, the international body of medical laws must be critically analysed and juxtaposed against this adequate standard. This carries the dual purpose of adding normative content as well as determining the current state of South Africa’s obligations under international human rights law, and to what extent those obligations have been discharged. Finally, and most significantly, the right to adequate healthcare, as it was forged in the international legal analysis, will be transposed onto the current South African jurisprudence of socio-economic rights. This practical application will then be reflected onto the new National Health Care Insurance to show conclusively that the current governmental approach of effecting health care is wholly inoperable and will ultimately result in significant harm and extensive human rights violations. This is based on the government only considering access to health care sufficient to discharge its duties and being totally incapable of effectively managing its resources. The core outcome for this thesis is to prove the existence of the right to adequate healthcare. Secondary outcomes are tracing the history of medicine to illustrate the creation and evolution of the doctor-patient relationship, a critical analysis of the application of medical ethics to South African law of obligations, a critical analysis of the Constitution and its fundamentals, an exhaustive evaluation of South Africa’s duties and accomplishments under its international obligations and effectively applying the right to adequate healthcare which is diametrically opposed to the current course South Africa is taking to provide health care. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Public Law / unrestricted

The legal historical development of fairness in the South African common law of contract is investigated in the context of the political, social and economic developments of the last four centuries. It emerges that the common law of contract is still dominated by the ideologies of individualism and economic liberalism which were imported from English law during the nineteenth century. Together with the theories of legal positivism and formalism which are closely related to parliamentary sovereignty and the classical rule of law, these ideals were transposed into the common law of contract through the classical model of contract law which emphasises freedom and sanctity of contract and promotes legal certainty. This approach resulted in the negation of the court’s equitable discretion and the limitation of good faith which sustain the social and economic inequalities that were created under colonialism and exacerbated under apartheid rule. In stark contrast, the modern human rights culture grounded in human dignity and aimed at the promotion of substantive equality led to the introduction of modern contract theory in other parts of the world. The introduction of the Constitution as grounded in human dignity and aimed at the achievement of substantive equality has resulted in a sophisticated jurisprudence on human dignity that reflects a harmonisation between its Western conception as based on Kantian dignity and ubuntu which provides an African understanding thereof. In this respect, ubuntu plays an important role in infusing the common law of contract with African values and in promoting substantive equality between contracting parties in line with modern contract theory. It is submitted that this approach to human dignity should result in the development of good faith into a substantive rule of the common law of contract which can be used to set aside an unfair contract term or the unfair enforcement thereof. / Private Law / LL. D.