Health & Democracy

Special Features

This is the first major book on health law in post-apartheid South Africa. It includes policy considerations for health and democracy socially with careful note to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which is currently high on the agenda in both southern and South Africa. The book is also a comprehensive analysis of health law and policy issues in democratic South Africa. Contains tables of statutes and cases, as well as a comprehensive index.

Endorsements

“I welcome the publication of this book because it will help all those who have rights and responsibilities in relation to health, to understand their duties. For government officials and civil servants it will be a valuable resource because it describes and explains simply the legal framework we have created since 1994 to try to deliver all aspects of health care. For health users it will be a valuable resource because it describes how the entire health system works, rather than just the part they encounter. It should empower users by teaching them about the law, about where responsibility lies and about their own responsibilities.”
–        Ms Nozizwe  Madlala-Routledge, former Deputy Minister of Health, South Africa

“This wonderfully timely book is far more than a manual or a handbook on health law. It is a compendium packed with vital information on how South Africa’s laws and Constitution shape our lives and our well being, and how they can be used to secure wellness and health for all this country’s people. Lucid, comprehensive and thoughtful, the book has lawyerly precision and detail; but it also has passion – well-informed and well-directed passion. And rightly so, for in health rights, justice and injustice truly are a matter of life and death.”
–        Mr Justice Edwin Cameron, Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa

“This is an excellent introduction to the many issues that need to be addressed in health law and human rights. I welcome the consideration of new challenges to the right to health and the key issues in responding to the AIDS epidemic in Southern as well as South Africa. This is essential reading for policy-makers and programme implementers alike.”
–        Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)

“This book is a significant addition to literature on the human right to the highest attainable standard of health. Although its focus is the struggle for better health in post-apartheid South Africa, it locates South Africa’s Constitution and health policies firmly in international human rights principles and norms. It shows how global norms can be localized, and then how local standards can have an impact on global activism for health. This book is valuable for human rights activists across the world. It is an example of how to make universal human rights law real and relevant in the day to day policies and laws that affect people’s lives.”
–        Mr Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health

Table of Contents

1 A background to health law and human rights in South Africa
2 The Constitution and public health policy
3 Budgeting for health
4 The statutory and administrative framework of the public health system
5 The role of international law in South African health law and policy-making
6 The private health care sector
7 Traditional and alternative health care
8 The rights of users of the health care system
9 The rights of vulnerable groups to health care
10 The rights and duties of health care workers
11 Gender and health
12 Health research and ethical principles
13 Developing, registering and using medicines
14 Access to essential medicines
References
Table of cases
Table of legislation

About the Authors

Adila Hassim has a doctorate in law from St Louis University, Missouri (USA) that focuses on the legal protection of the right to health in South Africa. She also holds the BA, LLB (University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal) and LLM (St Louis University) degrees. She is an advocate of the High Court of South Africa and a member of the Johannesburg Bar. She has worked at Section 27, formerly AIDS Law Project, since 2004 and is currently the head of litigation and legal services. Adila was a research clerk at the Constitutional Court in its early years and has continued passionately to defend constitutional rights, and socio-economic rights in particular.

Mark Heywood holds a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature (Oxford University) and an MA in African Literature (University of the Witwatersrand). He has been the head Section 27, formerly the AIDS Law Project, since 1997 and has been involved in promoting human rights around health and HIV for 15 years and in all the major constitutional litigation on HIV that has taken place since the start of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. Before that he was involved for a decade in the anti-apartheid struggle from London and later South Africa. He is also deeply interested in African and English literature.

Jonathan Berger holds degrees in law and architecture from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, as well as a Master of Laws degree from the University of Toronto that focused on the relationship between access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, international trade law and domestic Constitutional law. He has worked at Section 27, formerly the AIDS Law Project, since 2002, and is currently the head of policy and research and focuses on access to treatment for HIV/AIDS in general and access to essential medicines in particular. Prior to earning his first law degree in 1998, he co-founded and co-ordinated the Gay and Lesbian Legal Advice Centre of the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. A former research clerk at the Constitutional Court, Jonathan has a passion for the use of law as a tool of social change.