Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law

McClendon, Thomas V.; Broun, Kenneth S.

doi:10.2307/486360

Cited by 3 publications

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Section: Introduction: Celebrating a Notable Juristmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Very few people outside of South Africa, except a small number who have studied the legal and political system there, are familiar with Justice Mahomed and his impressive legacy. Justice Mahomed has featured prominently in one or two volumes that focused on black lawyers in South Africa (Broun, 1999;Ngcukaitobi, 2018).Second, Justice Mahomed had a profound impact on the law and legal practice in South Africa, both as an advocate during the dark days of apartheid as well as during the transition to a constitutional democracy. He also became the Deputy-President of the newly established constitutional court and the country's first black Chief Justice.…”

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Reflections on South Africa's first Black Chief Justice, Ismail Mahomed

Andrews

2023

Law Soc Rev

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The law was in effect Mahomed's life. His visible and strong sense of justice and morality were his touchstone. He regarded the attainment of justice as being the ultimate rationale for all law. This sustained him throughout his illustrious career as an advocate and judge.(Rose-Innes, 2000)LSA Presidential Address 2021 (virtual meeting) Good afternoon! Thank you for attending my talk today. As the airline announcement goes, I know you have many choices, and I am so happy that you chose to join me today.My address will be a brief tribute to a notable jurist and South Africa's first black chief justice, Ismail Mahomed. 2 I chose to dedicate my address to Justice Mahomed for several reasons. First, I wanted to make Justice Mahomed visible to an American and global audience like the Law and Society Association. When we think about notable South African lawyers and judges, the names that often come to mind are Albie Sachs, Sydney Kentridge, Edward Cameron, Arthur Chaskalson, George Bizos, and a few others. Very few people outside of South Africa, except a small number who have studied the legal and political system there, are familiar with Justice Mahomed and his impressive legacy. Justice Mahomed has featured prominently in one or two volumes that focused on black lawyers in South Africa (Broun, 1999;Ngcukaitobi, 2018).Second, Justice Mahomed had a profound impact on the law and legal practice in South Africa, both as an advocate during the dark days of apartheid as well as during the transition to a constitutional democracy. He also became the Deputy-President of the newly established constitutional court and the country's first black Chief Justice. Third, Justice Mahomed's story is an inspiring one; it speaks to resilience, fortitude and stoicism and it is one that needs recounting. His story is truly a testament to the strength of the human spiritone that stands alongside the testimonies of other great South African lawyers. We are all shaped by the historical times and geographical spaces that we inhabit, and the trajectory and narrative of Justice Mahomed's life was no different. Apartheid, the system of institutionalized Presidential Address 2020 1 Thank you to Elizabeth Planas for transcribing my remarks. My remarks draw and build upon my contribution to a volume of essays in honor of Justice Mahomed that was published in South Africa in 2020. 2The term "black" in South Africa refers to indigenous Africans, Indian people (whom we refer to here in the USA as South Asians) and people who are designated as colored (mixed-race people) as I am. Justice Mahomed was brought up in a small Indian community in the city of Pretoria.

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Section: Introduction: Celebrating a Notable Juristmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on South Africa's first Black Chief Justice, Ismail Mahomed

Andrews

2023

Law Soc Rev

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Anti-colonial Lawyering, Postwar Human Rights, and Decolonization across Imperial Boundaries in Africa

Terretta¹

2017

Canadian Journal of History

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Focusing on the relationship between African political actors and their lawyers enables us to see the history of Africa's decolonization as an assemblage of legal processes through which a belief in universal democratic law — meaning law accessible to and in the service of everyone, including colonial subjects — nourished an awareness of the power of universally equal rights — meaning rights for all regardless of citizenship, economic or social status, degree of education, and religious, racial or cultural identity. In viewing the law as transformative with a potential to decolonize the structures of colonialism, Africans claimed their legal, political, and civil rights in the early years of decolonization. The alliance they formed with anti-colonialist lawyers forged the practice of claiming both individual rights and the collective right of the imperially governed to determine their political futures as equals. It was a practice that required a revolutionary transformation from the legally plural systems assigning variegated rights to the citizens and subjects of empires into political systems imagined to grant universal access to a more democratic law.

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Quality of Legal Education in the Brics Countries

Vinnichenko¹,

Gladun²

2020

RLS

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The relevance of the topic is determined by recent transitional process in higher legal education, aiming at finding its new directions and role of legal professionals in a changing world. Quality of higher legal education is one of the crucial problems in each state of the BRICS block. The objective of this article is to make a comparative analysis of legal education quality in the BRICS countries. In plethora of research literature related to higher education in general and legal education specifically in selected BRICS countries, there is a difficulty to find a comprehensive comparative analysis of the quality of legal training across educational institutions in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The authors identify common and specific features of legal training in the BRICS countries. The common drivers for legal education are global influence of the American education system, “explosive” growth in the popularity of legal education, urgent needs to reform educational process and its quality, growing differentiation of educational institutions into “elite” and “mass”, with a special role of each type of university in society. The peculiarities of legal education in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are primarily in the structure of educational institutions and bodies controlling quality of educational training; solutions to the borrowing educational experience and attempts at self-identification in the global educational space. The problems of legal education have been studied in dynamics over the past 20 years holistically (complex analysis). In their conclusions, the authors propose some results of a comparative legal analysis related to quality of higher legal education. In particular, they outline the leading role of the government in setting requirements for the content of educational process and lawyer’s competencies; the increasing role of employers, public organizations and students in establishing requirements for law schools. The results of the research can be used both for academic studies and for practical purposes in reforming BRICS legal education.

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Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law

Cited by 3 publications

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Reflections on South Africa's first Black Chief Justice, Ismail Mahomed

Reflections on South Africa's first Black Chief Justice, Ismail Mahomed

Anti-colonial Lawyering, Postwar Human Rights, and Decolonization across Imperial Boundaries in Africa

Quality of Legal Education in the Brics Countries

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