The Structure of Legal Education in South Africa

From the late eighteenth century, the British administration preserved the Roman-Dutch law even as it proceeded to introduce the English common law and to anglicize legal process in South Africa, beginning with the then Cape Colony. On the first day of 1828 the First [British] Charter of Justice (1827) was implemented; together with the Second Charter of Justice, it brought about sweeping changes in the administration of justice in the Cape Colony, including the establishment of the Cape Supreme Court. Thenceforth, it was proclaimed, advocates would have to be recruited from among the members of the English, Scottish, and Irish inns of court or from graduates of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin. Judges in turn were to be appointed solely from the ranks of the advocates. The British government, however, refused to countenance the direct imposition of the English common law. The existing substantive Roman-Dutch law, particularly in the fields of property, contracts, and wills, it was argued, was adequate to meet the needs of the community. Following a national convention in 1908, the four southern African colonies of Great Britain the Cape Colony, Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and Natal decided to relinquish their sovereign rights and unify. The RomanDutch law prevailing in all four colonies at that time undoubtedly acted as a unifying influence. Union came on May 31, 1910, and was achieved by the Union of South Africa Act of 1909, which constituted the Union of South Africa as a union with legislative powers under the British crown. The first provisions for the teaching of law in the Cape Colony were promulgated in 1858. The 1858 act made provision for the issue of certificates of competency in law and jurisprudence. Subsequent progress in the teaching of law can hardly be described as meteoric. A glance at the 1875 syllabus for the degree of bachelor of laws at the University of the Cape of Good Hope shows that provision was made for English law as well as Roman, Dutch, and colonial law.