The University of Pretoria Faculty of Law was established in 1908. It consists of six academic departments, six centres, two law clinics and the Pretoria University Law Press (PULP).[4] This faculty has Departments of Jurisprudence, Mercantile Law, Private Law, Procedural Law, Public Law and Centre for Human Rights. The faculty offers the undergraduate LLB degree, and postgraduate LLM/MPhil and LLD/PhD degrees.
The proposal for a university for the capital, first mooted in the Volksraad in 1889, was interrupted by the outbreak of the Anglo Boer War in 1899. In 1902, after the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging, the Normal College for teacher training was established in Groenkloof, Pretoria, and in 1904, the Transvaal Technical Institute, with an emphasis on mining education, opened in Johannesburg. In 1906, the Transvaal Technical Institute changed its name to the Transvaal University College (TUC).[8] On 4 March 1908, when Transvaal University College (TUC) transferred its arts and science courses to its newly established Pretoria Campus, the precursor to the university was established, initially offering courses in languages, sciences, and law.[9][10]
In November 2019, Elsabe Schoeman became Dean of UP Law.[11] Since August 2020, the Deputy Dean for Teaching and Learning has been Professor Charles Maimela, the youngest and first black Deputy Dean at UP Law.[12]
UP Law currently employs approximately 70 dedicated full-time academics.[13][when?]
Global ranking
UP Law got a global 78th-placed ranking in 2023 and 60th in 2022,[14] making it the highest ranked Faculty of Law on the African continent.[15]
The faculty conferred 179 masters' and 35 doctoral graduates in 2017, 173 master's and 27 doctoral graduates in 2018,[16] and 18 doctoral and 246 master's degrees in 2019.[17]
Faculty of Law buildingThe University of Pretoria Old Arts building
Centres and institutes
Centres and institutes in the faculty include the Centre for Advanced Corporate & Insolvency Law, Centre for Child Law, Centre for Human Rights, Centre for Intellectual Property Law, Centre for Medicine & Law, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa and Sports Law Centre in Africa.
The ICLA coordinates the Oxford Constitutions Online African country reports and collaborates with the Centre for Human Rights to coordinate the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts (ILDC) Online African case law.[5]
Centre for Child Law
The Centre for Child Law (CCL/ Centre) was established in 1998 and is registered as a law clinic with the Legal Practice Council. CCL contributes to the establishment and protection of children’s rights through strategic impact litigation, participation in legislative and policy reform, advocacy, research, capacity building of relevant stakeholders, and contributing to the body of knowledge on child law. As a leading children’s rights strategic impact litigation organisation in South Africa, the Centre has contributed to the development of child law through law reform, case law, policy development, and influencing public discourse through the use of the constitutional, regional, and international legal framework for effective public interest litigation.
The vision of the Centre is to establish child law and uphold the rights of children in South Africa within an international and regional context, particularly insofar as these interests pertain to their legal position. The Centre’s mission is to work towards the development of child law and the realisation of children’s rights in South Africa, within a regional and international context. It works toward ensuring the accountability of responsible role players, both public and private, for the protection and realisation of children’s rights as required by international and national legal instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and other relevant child rights and human rights treaties.
To realise its mission and vision, the Centre strategically engages in various activities. Over the years, the Centre has worked on diversifying its areas of activity beyond litigation with the view of ensuring that its work remains relevant, impactful, and engaging as the children’s rights legal framework develops. Below is a detailed discussion of some of these areas of work. Its current thematic areas of work include strategic litigation, legal advice and assistance, advocacy and policy reform, research and evidence-based advocacy, stakeholder collaboration, engagement and networking, and capacity building.
To affirm and give content to children’s rights, the Centre carefully selects cases to set a legal precedent that improves and strengthens laws pertaining to children, in line with the Constitution, regional and international rights, and principles. The Centre employs numerous litigation strategies, including entering as amicus curiae in strategic cases and bringing its own applications, civil actions, and appeals or reviews. The Centre plays a strategic role in a network of child protection organisations and accepts referrals from other children's rights groups.
The Africa Regional Round is hosted by the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, University of Pretoria Faculty of Law
Pretoria University Law Press
The Pretoria University Law Press (PULP), within the Faculty of Law, publishes and distributes scholarly legal texts in English, Afrikaans, French, Arabic and Portuguese.[21] PULP publishes a series of collections of legal documents related to African public law and legal textbooks from other African countries and is a member of the Publishers' association of South Africa.[22]
Student activities
Law students participate in the following activities:
The Constitutional Tribunal is the judicial body of student governance and adjudicates disputes primarily between student organisations, and its judges sit on the panel of student disciplinary hearings.
The Pretoria Student Law Review (PSLR), published by PULP, is a student-driven and administered initiative providing an interactive student platform to discuss topical legal matters.[23]
Law House provides a platform for social engagement, community outreach and student engagement with the faculty.
Several internal and external moot court competitions through the Moot and Debating Society.
The Student Disciplinary Advisory Panel (SDAP) may give advice to students appearing in front of student disciplinary hearings regarding the procedure of student disciplinary hearings.
Alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(April 2019)
National Law University, Jodhpur (NLUJ) is a public law school and a National Law University established under the National Law University, Jodhpur, Act, 1999 enacted by the Rajasthan State Legislature. The university was established for the advancement of learning, teaching, research and diffusion of knowledge in the field of law. It is one of the autonomous law schools in India.
LourensWepener Hugo "Laurie" Ackermann was a South African judge who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2004. Appointed to the inaugural court by Nelson Mandela, he is best known for his jurisprudence on dignity. He was formerly an academic, a practising advocate, and a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
Auckland Law School is one of the eight faculties that make up the University of Auckland. Auckland Law School is located at the City Campus, between Waterloo Quadrant and Eden Crescent. It is in close proximity to the Auckland High Court. In 2020, Auckland Law School ranked 50th in the world. The University of Auckland's Law School is the largest of its kind in New Zealand. It has courses in a variety of fields, including commercial, public, human rights and environmental law.
ILS Law College, or in its full name Indian Law Society's Law College, is a government-aided law school in Pune, India. It was established in 1924 and offers courses that include three-year and five-year degrees. ILS is located on Law College Road, Pune. The college was aided by the Ford Foundation.
The Faculty of Law, University of Delhi is the law department of the University of Delhi. It has the unique distinction of producing the largest number of sitting judges of the Supreme Court of India, with many notable alumni's from various fields.
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Johann Vincent van der Westhuizen is a South African who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 2004 to January 2016. He was a professor of law at the University of Pretoria from 1980 to 1999, when he joined the bench as a judge of the High Court of South Africa.
The African Human Rights Moot Court Competition is an international moot court competition with a special focus on human rights in Africa. The competition is organised by the Centre for Human Rights, based at the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law in South Africa. Each year, the competition is hosted by a Law Faculty from a different African country. Since its inception in 1992, the competition has had 845 participant teams originating from 125 universities from 45 African countries.
The University of Pretoria is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg-based Transvaal University College and is the fourth South African institution in continuous operation to be awarded university status. The university has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 53,000 in 2019. The university was built on seven suburban campuses on 1,190 hectares.
The Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition is a moot court competition on international human rights law. In 2009, the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law's Centre for Human Rights, with the assistance of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, organised the inaugural edition. Previously, the oral rounds of the competition were held annually in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. In more recent years, the competition has been held in Geneva, where the United Nations is headquartered.
More than pure aspirations, human rights are real rights that can be tested in courts of law. The World Human Rights Moot Court Competition is an exciting way for students from around the world to deepen their knowledge of rights and learn from each other.
Narandran "Jody" Kollapen is a South African judge who joined the Constitutional Court of South Africa on 1 January 2022. He was appointed to the apex court by President Cyril Ramaphosa after a decade of service in the High Court of South Africa. He is also a former chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission.
The Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law, South Africa, is an organisation dedicated to promoting human rights on the continent of Africa. The centre, founded in 1986, promotes human rights through educational outreach, including multinational conferences, seminars and publications such as Human Rights Law in Africa, The African Human Rights Law Journal, the African Human Rights Law Reports and The Constitutional Law of South Africa. The centre, which was founded during Apartheid, assisted in adapting a Bill of Rights for South Africa and contributed to creating the South African Constitution. In 2006, the centre received the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education, particular recognising for the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa and the African Human Rights Moot Court Competition.
The South African National Schools Moot Court Competition is an annual moot court competition established in 2011 aimed at creating greater consciousness and understanding in South African schools and communities about the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and the values embodied by it through the active participation of learners in a moot court competition.
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The University of Pretoria Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology educational programs stretch back to 1908 and consists of the School of Engineering, School for the Built Environment, School of Information Technology and the Graduate School of Technology Management. The university is the only African collaborator in the CDIO engineering initiative: Since 1997, the university as a whole has produced more research outputs every year than any other institution of higher learning in South Africa, as measured by the Department of Education's accreditation benchmark.
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Frans Lourens Herman Rumpff, was the Chief Justice of South Africa from 1974 to 1982.
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Ann Marie Skelton is a South African jurist and children's rights activist who has been chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since May 2023. She is a professor of private law at the University of Pretoria, where she is UNESCO Chair in Education Law in Africa, and she also holds the Chair in Children's Rights in a Sustainable World at Leiden University.
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