Law clinics at African universities: An overview of the service delivery component with passing references to experiences in South and South-East Asia

Abstract

Modern forms of live client university law clinics developed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda during the 1970's, in Botswana and Nigeria in the 19BO's, in Kenya in the 1990's, and in Lesotho, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Somaliland and Sierra Leone during the new millenium. Not all the clinics survived and several have been recently revived. Some law clinics are student-run, several are run by universities on a voluntary basis, and more recently many have been incorporated into the formal law faculty or law school curriculum. Most of the African law clinics are general practice advice clinics, a few engage in specialist or public interest work, and even fewer undertake litigation. The majority operate on university campuses, but some involve farming students out to other agencies, and a few operate off-campus. Many of the clinical programmes also include a legal literacy or Street law component. A component missing from most African law clinic programmes is the South and South East Asian 'community law clinic' concept a model that could be ideally suited to many African countries. These models have been successfully applied in the Philippines, India and Bangladesh and require law students to live with the local people in poor or vulnerable communities - often in rural areas; to identify the legal and social problems faced by the communities; to develop solutions to the community's problems together with the community; and in some instances, to publish the results of their research and proposed solutions. For many middle class law students living and working with disadvantaged or marginalised communities has proved to be a life-changing experience. The socio-economic environment of many South and South East Asian countries mirrors those of most African countries and the 'community law clinic' model is well worth consideration by African law faculties and law schools.