- According to Coordinator Desia Colgan, too few students registered for the course to justify its activity for the year. The reasons for the low enrolment are not readily ascertainable. The Coordinator speculates that one influencing factor was that 2000 was a bridging year in the change of the overall law school curriculum from a four-year post-graduate curriculum to a five-year LLB curriculum. The manner in which the course was marketed could also be an influencing factor. These factors notwithstanding, courses regarding commercial transactions were not similarly under-subscribed. Ultimately, the reason for student enrolment in a course is student interest in the subject matter and students' belief that the subject matter will assist them in their careers as attorneys.
- The following universities have Street Law and/or Democracy For All programmes: University of Natal, Durban, University of Port Elizabeth, University of the Western Cape, University of the Free State, University of the Northwest, University of Cape Town, University of the North, Potchefstroom University, Rhodes University. University of Venda, UNISA, and University of Transkei. Street Law is also operated at the Southern Cape Street Law Office and the Mpumalanga Street Law Office.
- Petty apartheid laws required segregation in toilets, lifts, parks, beaches, hotels, cinemas and restaurants, leaving no aspect of public accommodation unaffected. See Reservation of Separate Amenities Act 49 of 1953.
- See the Native Trust and Land Act 18 of 1936 (later called the Development Trust and Land Act), which established regulations allowing the government to control every aspect of the black economy, including business, farming, building, townships, land tenure and tribal authorities. It regulated minutiae such as how many times a year a building must be white washed.
- House of Assembly Debates, 17 September 1953.
- See C Harber Politics In African Education (1989) 185.
- C Harber Education, Democracy, and Political Development In Africa (1997) 9 citing M Shipman Education and Modernization (1971) Chapter 2.
- See P Kallaway (ed) Apartheid and Education (1984) (providing an overview of education under the apartheid government).
- Harber (note 6 above) 139.
- See J Dugard ‘A New Approach To Law’ in Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (1978) 391, 392.
- Ibid.
- Z Motala ‘Legal Education in South Africa: Moving Beyond the Couch-Potato Model Towards a Lawyering-Skills Approach — A Case for a Comprehensive Course on Legal Research, Analysis and Writing’ (1996) 113 SALJ 695. See also P Andrews ‘Legal Education in a Changing South Africa’ (1990) 1 African LR 5 (‘[Law] students are passive participants in the whole system — and a lot of creativity on the law student's part involves assessing what is important for exam purposes.’)
- But see S Woolman, P Watson & N Smith ‘“Toto, I've A Feeling We're Not In Kansas Any More”: A Reply to Professor Motala and Others on the Transformation of Legal Education in South Africa’ (1997) 114 SALJ 30. Whilst there is a great variance in teaching methods and approaches to the law. legal problems and legal process amongst law lecturers, this essay posits that those who have attempted to teach from a democratic perspective, or any other unconventional perspective, are the exception not the rule.
- See J Dugard ‘The Judicial Process, Positivism and Civil Liberty’ (1971) 88 SALJ 181.
- C Harber (note 6 above) 185–86.
- See H Corder & D Davis ‘Law and Social Practice: An Introduction’ in H Corder (ed) Essays on Law and Social Practice in South Africa (1988) 1, 18 (analysing the myriad legal and social problems created by the overlapping of law and political forces in society). See also N James ‘Law and the Idea of Justice’ (1968) 31 THRHR 320, 322 (providing an uncritical affirmation of the need for a public that respects unquestioningly the laws established by the legislature in order to have civilised society).
- G Budlender ‘Lawyers and Poverty: Beyond “Access to Justice‘” in J Hund (ed) Law and Justice in South Africa (1988) 2.
- Section 8 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 108 of 1996 (‘the Constitution’). See also C Sprigman & M Osborne ‘Du Plessis is Not Dead: South Africa's 1996 Constitution and the Application of the Bill of Rights to Private Disputes’ (1999) 15 SAJHR 25 (recognizing the possibility of the direct horizontal application of the Bill of Rights and discussing its implications).
- See S Nadasen ‘Changing Law in a Changing Society: Reflections from a Black Perspective’ (1993) 110 SALJ 580, 584 (citing P Maduna ‘Making Justice Accessible to All in a New South Africa: The Right to Counsel and the Democratic Ideal’ paper read at the conference of the South African Legal Defense Fund in collaboration with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on the Right to Legal Representation: A Public Defender Service in a Democratic South Africa, Johannesburg (October 1992) 8. See also N Steytler ‘Access to Justice: The Role of Legal Aid’ in J Hund (ed) Law and Justice in South Africa (1988) 25, 28 (citing L Mayhew ‘Institutions of Representation, Civil Justice and the Public’ (1974) 9 L & Soc Rev 401 (‘denial of rights must be sensed and expressed by those who possess them’).
- See J Sarkin ‘Restructuring the Legal Profession and Access to Justice: The Duty of Law Graduates and Lawyers to Provide Legal Services’ (1993) 9 SAJHR 223.
- See Corder & Davis (note 16 above) 24 (‘it is clear that most members of the legal profession, practising and academic, are oblivious of the urgent necessity for a changed approach to their field of expertise’).
- See L Du Plessis ‘Legal Academics and the Open Community of Constitutional Interpreters’ (1996) 12 SAJHR 214 (arguing that legal academics share responsibility for the creation of the new legal and social orders and offering examples of how this responsibility becomes evident); M Cappelletti ‘The Future of Legal Education: A Comparative Perspective’ (1992) 8 SAJHR 1.
- M Fullan The New Meaning of Educational Change 2 ed (1996) 130.
- See Cappelletti (note 22 above) 11.
- C Dlamini ‘The Law Teacher, the Law Student and Legal Education in South Africa’ (1992) 109 SALJ 595 (criticising the legal educational system for having undermined the development of critical thought, thereby eroding the legitimacy of the legal system and concepts of justice and equality). Speeches delivered at the Conference of the Society of University Teachers of Law in South Africa, held in Cape Town on 28 January 1959, provide an insight into the traditional paradigm for teaching law students. This paradigm calls for obedience to the law and conspicuously ignores topics of human rights, freedom of speech, respect for difference or clinical legal education. See ‘The Legal Training of Advocates, Attorneys and Public Servants’ (1959) 76 SALJ 310. See also, D Davis ‘Legal Education in South Africa: A Re-Examination’ (1978) 58 SALJ 424, 425 (criticising the compartmentalised positivistic approach to the law taught in law schools that fails to consider the social interests of the wider society).
- See J Maharaj ‘The Role of the Law Schools in Practical Legal Training’ (1994) 111 SALJ 328: J Church ‘Reflections on Legal Education’ (1988) 51 THRHR 153; A Chaskalson ‘Responsibility for Practical Legal Training’ 1985 De Rebus 116; M Motshekga ‘A System of Internship’ 1986 De Rebus 425; J Hund ‘Getting Serious about Legal Education in Namibia’ (1993) 110 SALJ 593 (suggesting a division of the law school education into distinct phases: one phase for education about legal theory and the other phase for education about the practical aspects of representation); D McQuoid-Mason ‘Clinical Legal Education: Its Future in SA’ (1977) 40 THRHR 343 (outlining the major schools of thought regarding the relative merits and demerits of a law school curriculum that incorporates practical studies).
- Many commentators recognize the need for integration of the practical and theoretical aspects of legal education. See Church (note 26 above) 154; Maharaj (note 26 above) 332.
- Harber (note 6 above) 41 (providing a definition of democratic education).
- Church (note 26 above) 155.
- In 2001, the Street Law/DFA programme adopted the term ‘service learning’ from a related context to name this component of the Street Law/DFA curriculum. Service learning involves law students learning through one-on-one interaction with, and teaching of, people in the community. Coordinator Desia Colgan has stated: ‘The basic vision behind service learning is for the University to become committed to a wider form of engagement with the community through which it can become an active and responsive player in the local, national, and regional environment’ (June 23, 2001).
South African Journal on Human Rights
Volume 17, 2001 - Issue 3