Please read the abstract in the dissertation. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2015 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

This dissertation considers the impact of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (hereafter ‘CPA’) on contractual claims, and specifically whether the exceptio doli generalis is being reintroduced in the South African legal system. This dissertation illustrates that although the CPA improves the position of the consumer in many ways, the legislature should have drafted some provisions more carefully which could have resulted in clarifying some vital issues. Many terms and principles introduced by the CPA are foreign to the South African legal system. Although practice and precedent will eventually provide solutions to many of the practical difficulties currently experienced, it will take time and money to do so. It is therefore submitted that some areas should be reconsidered for amendment by the legislature in order to allow this significant piece of legislation to operate optimally Ultimately, two sets of conclusions can be drawn in this dissertation. Firstly, the general conclusions relating to whether the defence of the exceptio doli generalis has been reintroduced in the South African legal system by the CPA and, secondly, whether the exceptio doli generalis is in line with our constitutional values and in line with the current rules for the interpretation of contracts. Although the Courts have abolished the defence ofexceptio doli generalis, it seems as if the CPA has reintroduced this defence. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Private Law / unrestricted

The exceptio doli generalis, which is the Roman law defence of “bad” faith, in the general form, has , until the decision of Bank of Lisbon and South Africa (SA) (Pty) Ltd, been one of the mechanisms that has been utilised by South African courts to apply abstract values of fairness and equity into the South African substantive law. The exceptio dolis generalis was available to a party in circumstances where the act of bringing the action by the other party constituted an act of “bad” faith. The court in the Bank of Lisbon and South Africa case decided that the exceptio doli generalis had never been received into Roman Dutch law and didn’t accept it as a defence that could be utilised and applied in South African law. After the decision in the Bank of Lisbon case there have been many differing views on whether the exceptio doli generalis can and should still be applied in South African law and concern in legal circles regarding the “gap” that the decision left in our law and the need to develop other means of ensuring greater fairness in the operation of the law of contract through possibly legislative intervention which at a stage was being investigated by the Law Commission. With the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act, Act 68 of 2008, the question which now comes to the fore is whether the Consumer Protection Act is a reintroduction of the exceptio doli generalis or whether the Act is merely a codification of the common law principles and abstract values of public policy/interest and good faith, which could mean one and the same thing. In order for this question to be answered an in depth investigation and study of theexceptio doli generalis, its applicability and development in South African law is required. Such a study is of importance in order for the aim and purpose of the defence to be properly understood. It is also necessary in order to understand how such a defence ties in and is closely linked with the abstract values and concepts of good faith and public policy/interest, which we have seen courts recognise in decisions subsequent to the Bank of Lisbon and South Africa case. Once this question is answered, attention will be turned to the Consumer Protection Act, its provisions and the effect thereof, and whether such provisions amount to the reintroduction of the exceptio dolis generalis but in an indirect way by the codification of the concepts of public policy/interest and good faith, which in turn could be the exceptio dolis generalis just called by a different name. The answer to this research question is very relevant and of extreme significance. It could mean that the South African legislature eventually got to doing what the legal profession has been asking of it for years and that is to put clarity on the defence of the exceptio doli generalis. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Private Law / unrestricted

Apparently the existence of deepgoing antinomies in our system of contracts is an experience too painful to rise to the full level of our consciousnes. In the current transformative milieu, the South African law of contract continues its attempts to convey an image of contract as a coherent system of clear and neutral rules. These attempts stem from the belief that the rule-book, in and of itself, can offer us determinate answers in all contractual disputes. This study was borne out of a concern that in its commitments to sustain this image, the South African law of contract is not sufficiently concerned with transformation and the ideal of justice. In the seventies, Kennedy exposed the ambivalence of the contract system and argued that private law vividly reflected the fundamental contradiction; the irresolvable tension in and among us between acting purely out of self-interest or allowing our actions to be informed, influenced and curtailed by others. Kennedy asserted that the fundamental contradiction could be construed as a continuum with two opposing ‘ideal typical’ positions on both the level of form and substance. On the substance level he referred to this warring engagement as individualism and altruism. On the form level, the ideal typical commitments prefer law either in the form of rules or as open-ended standards. Kennedy’s most provocative claim was that individualism preferred law in the form of rules whereas altruism favoured the open-ended standard form. This claim reflected the understanding that form and substance are interdependent because it is impossible not to ask: ‘Form of what?’ Dalton later added more explicitly that form and substance would politically always generate a hierarchy within a legal system. Following Kennedy, this study engages with the South African law of contract in a similar way. It argues that the South African law of contract not only reflects the fundamental contradiction profoundly, but also privileges and works to sustain the individualism/rule position. This position is not sufficiently concerned with the ethical element of contract (good faith) and with the ideal of contractual justice. I consider whether and how the transition from a totalitarian state to a constitutional democracy affected this hierarchy. I arrive at disappointing but nevertheless hopeful conclusions in the sense that the bias inculcated in the law of contract cannot take anything away from the fact that it operates in the penumbra of a Constitution which is committed to openness, equality, dignity and freedom in all human relationships, including those of a contractual nature. In resisting the traditional representations of contract and in support of the above, I propose a re-emphasis on good faith as the ethical element of contract. Good faith cannot be contained in a neat and tidy legal definition. It realises that we are, in the community of contracting persons, each responsible for the other’s well-being and that we should ultimately remain concerned with the constitutive values of the supreme law under which the subordinated but indispensable law of contract must continue to operate. The difficulty and complexity of this exercise provides no alibi. Copyright 2005, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Barnard, AJ 2005, A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract, LLD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06192006-083839/ > / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Jurisprudence / LLD / Unrestricted