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 has conferred 179 masters' and 35 doctoral graduates in 2017, followed by 173 master's and 27 doctoral graduates in 2018.[16] In 2019, UP Law conferred 18 doctoral and 246 Master's degrees.[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]
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)
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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.
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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.
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