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14 Pretoria Student L. Rev. 70 (2020)
Critical Legal Education: A Remedy for the Legacy of Colonial Legal Education?

handle is hein.journals/pslr14 and id is 86 raw text is: CRITICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: A REMEDY FOR THE
LEGACY OF COLONIAL LEGAL EDUCATION?
by Emerge Masiya* & Given Mdluli**

Abstract

The call for decolonisation of legal education stems from the
acknowledgement of the presence of retrogressive colonial approach to
legal education. This approach includes a neutral and formal teaching
that is blinded to ethical and social considerations. Law is a mirror of a
country's moral, cultural and social values and yet South African legal
education distances itself with all other considerations and insists on a
Western, autonomous and functionalist approach to legal education.
This results in the moulding of uncritical and thoughtless modern
lawyers with no concern to ethics and justice. Decolonisation demands
a critical legal education and the replacement of the colonial Black
letter teaching for a therapeutic jurisprudence. Both of which demand
an interdisciplinary approach to legal education that acknowledges the
impact of legal education on politics, society and culture. Thus, this
article uses Critical Legal Studies (CLS) to deconstruct the colonial legal
education epistemology.
*   LLM Candidate (UL). She holds an LLB degree from the University of Limpopo.
** LLM Candidate (UL). He holds an LLB degree from the University of Limpopo.

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