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89 S. African L.J. 158 (1972)
An Increase in the Use of Pre-Sentence Reports

handle is hein.journals/soaf89 and id is 196 raw text is: 158 THE SOUTH AFRICAN LAW JOURNAL 'Dat de voorwaarde afhankelijk is van de willekeur van die optiegerechtigde is geen bezwaar. Art 1292 verklaart de verbintenis slechts nietig, indien de vervulling uitsluitend afhangt van der wil van degene die zich verbonden heeft.' How then are we able to surmount this obstacle? There can be only one answer. We must put aside academic dogmatics. Our legal history tells us that certain pacts are enforceable even although their fulfilment is dependent on the will of one of the parties-for instance, a pactum displicentiae and a pactum de contrahendo. This was true of the past .and is true of the present. It remains only to be said that the notion of an option as a contract is singularly inappropriate in one modern context. The Formalities in respect of Contracts of Sale of Land Act 71 of 1969 requires contracts for the sale of land to be in writing. It says nothing of options. At first blush it would seem, therefore, that options to purchase land (which are preliminary pacts and not sales) need not be in writing, But the concept of an option to purchase implies that a sale emerges once the option is exercised. See Bynkershoek Obs Turn 2748 and De Bruyn v Peypers 1955 (1) SA 463 (GW). Cf (1960) 77 SALJ 412. Unless the option is in writing it would be useless: the option holder could not convert it into a valid sale by merely exercising his option: De Bruyn v Peypers (supra), Brandt v Spies 1960 (4) SA 14 (E). (For a contrary view see (1963) 80 SALJ 140.) The facts of Venter v Birchholtz 1972 (1) SA 276 (AD) provide a neat illustration of the effect of regarding an option to purchase as a pactum de contrahendo and not a conditional sale. In April 1967 the defendant granted the plaintiff a written option to purchase certain land at a fixed price. The option was exercised in March 1970. If an option were a conditional sale, then a sale would have been concluded in 1967 and the formalities which would have applied would have been those set out in s 1(1) of the General Law Amendment Act 68 of 1957. But since an option to purchase is merely a preparatory pact, the contract of sale emerged only when the option was exercised, that is to say, in 1970. The statutory provisions, therefore, which were applicable were those of s 1(1) of the Formalities in respect of Contracts of Sales of Land Act 71 of 1969. D ZEFFERTT AN INCREASE IN THE USE OF PRE-SENTENCE REPORTS? In S v Adams 1971 (4) SA 125 (C), X, a 17-year-old first offender, and Z, a person with a previous conviction for a serious offence, had been convicted on two counts of theft of a motor vehicle. The thefts had been committed within a short period of time on the same night. The regional magistrate sentenced each of the offenders to nine months' imprisonment on each count, that is a total of eighteen months' imprisonment. On appeal by X, Steyn J (Grosskopf AJ concurring),

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