DE REBUS

reet
D J MCQuoid-Mason, professor, University of Natal, Durban
The Association of Law Societies of the Republic of
South Africa has initiated and funded a street-law
programme to make people in the street more
aware of their legal rights. At present the
programme is based in the Centre for Socio-Legal
Studies at the University of Natal, Durban and is
aimed primarily at schools including those in the
black townships.
What is street law?
Street law tells people about the laws that affect
them in their every day life "on the street". For
example every time a person buys something, rents
a house, gets married or divorced, or is accused of
a crime, he or she comes into contact with the law.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher ( dated 2011)
aw
Street law also encourages people to think about
the law from all sides so that they can understand
how it works. For example, schoolchildren would
be expected to give their reasons when discussing
questions like: What is the meaning of the law?
Why was a particular law made What are the
arguments in favour of the law'' What are the
arguments against the law' Should the law be left
as it is or changed? How are laws changed? If you
were the person making the law, how would you
word the law'
The purpose of the street-law programme is to
show children why it is necessary for any society to
have a legal system and how a legal system is
administered. It also encourages them to think
about the law objectively from all sides and makes
them aware of how they fit into the scheme of
things and how the law affects them and the rest of

Street law helps people understand how the law society. The programme originated in the black
works and how it can protect them. It also explains ghetto areas of Washington DC in the United States
what the law expects people to do in certain where many young people saw themselves as
situations. It tells them about the kind of legal being oppressed by the legal system. The
problems they should watch out for and how they programme has now run there for almost fifteen
can solve them. Most people think that only the years and an interesting by-product has been that
rich can win by using the law and that it works
against the poor. The law is confusing and it seems
to be difficult to obtain help from lawyers without
having plenty of money. Many people do not
believe that poor people renting broken-down
houses can get a court to order the owner to fix
them. They do not think that people who buy cars
that do not work properly can force the garages
that sold them to make repairs or refund their
money. Others probably do not believe that
people assaulted by the police can obtain
compensation for their injuries. It is possible to
receive compensation if people know about their
legal rights and where they may obtain help to take
legal action.
Apart from telling people generally about
problems in consumer, employment, welfare,
housing, family and criminal law, the Street-law
handbooks which are being published in six parts
also give advice which can be used in practical
situations: where one may obtain a lawyer; how
people may get their money back when a shop
sells something that does not work; what a person
should do if he or she is unfairly dismissed from a
job; what to do when one is arrested; how old or
sick people may obtain pensions; how to rent or
buy a house; and what parents and children are D McQuoid-Mason BComm LLB (Natal)
expected to do for each other, etc. LLM (London) PhD (Natal)

AUGUSTUS 1987 395

 DE REBUS
the juvenile delinquency rate in areas where there
are street-law classes has fallen by 80%.
The street-law project
In 1986 the University of Nata I, under the auspices
of the Association of Law Societies ran a six month
pilot project in five Natal schools for pupils of all
races. This year the Association sponsored the
appointment of a full-time senior lecturer in street
law at the University of Natal, Mr Mandla Mchunu .
Apart from myself he is also involved in training
schoolteachers from fifty schools serving all race
groups, thirty of which will be from KwaZulu
schools. At the end of the year, it is estimated that
approximately 20000 schoolchildren in the
greater Durban area will have been exposed to
street law. The schoolchildren are provided with a
Student text and school guidance teachers are
trained to use a Teacher:~ manual which explains
how to run the lessons. The teachers attend a
training seminar once a month and each school is
provided with a senior law student to act as a
resource person to assist the teacher when
necessary.
In the Transvaal the following street-law
workshops have been held this year:
1 In Soweto through the Soweto Careers Centre
which was attended by approximately sixty
guidance teachers and members from the
Johannesburg NICRO branch.
2 At the University of Pretoria through the
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher ( dated 2011)
department of school gUidance. Invitations were
sent to all the schools in and around Pretoria as
well as the individual departments of education .
Approximately one hundred and twenty people
attended.
3 At the University of the Witwatersrand through
the law clinic. Approximately forty people
attended.
4 In Mamelodi through a guidance teacher who
had attended the workshop at the University of
Pretoria. Approximately thirty people, being
gUidance teachers and people involved with youth
groups, attended .
5 At the Department of Prisons in Pretoria to
their educationalists and psychologists.
At present there is an urgent need for two people
to be appointed at two universities in the Transvaal
(one Afrikaans and one English university) as
street-law lecturers/liaison officers. Their duties
will include arranging: the instruction of street-law
teachers at least once a month; that law students
become involved on a voluntary basis; that the
project gets off the ground in the Transvaal as it has
done in Natal.
The Student text is due to be published in six
parts, of which the "Introduction to South African
law and the legal sy~,tem" has already been
published together with its companion, Teacher's
manual. The other volumes due for publication at
approximately six weekly intervals are: "Criminal
law and juvenile justice"; "Consumer law";
"Family law"; "Welfare and housing law";
"Employment law". It is also intended to translate
the text into Afrikaans and the first Afrikaans book
396
should be available by the end of June. It is
planned to give each school fifty free copies of the
Student text for use by students and one or two
copies of the Teacher's manual depending on
how many teachers are involved in the programme.
The Student text has been illustrated with cartoons
to make it reader-friendly. It contains short
descriptions of legal principles and then poses
questions and problems for the students. The
problems take the form of case studies, role plays,
mock trials, discussion groups, games and critical
thinking exercises to promote active student
learning and classroom involvement. The
Teacher 's manual provides the answers to the
problems and explains the different teaching
techniques.
The Text and Manual can also be used for the
training of advice officers, youth groups, social
workers and others involved in community·based
legal education programmes. Some NICRO
workers are now also being trained to use the
programme.
The Association of Law Societies and the Centre for
Socio-Legal Studies have sponsored a street-law
conference at the University of Natal in Durban
from 3 to 5 July 1987 in the hope of extending the
programme to all the provinces in the country and
persuading other universities to act as resource
centres. The ultimate goal is that approximately
250000 standard 8, 9 and 10 schoolchildren will
be involved in the programme each year. It is also
planned to hold inter-school mock trial
competitions and the Association has made some
univerSity bursaries available for students in the
programme.
Financing the project
At present it is planned to pu bl ish five thousand
copies of the Student text of each volume together
with five hundred Teacher's manuals for each
volume in both official languages for free
distribution in the participating schools. The
ultimate cost of this project will be approximately
R424 000. This would enable some one hundred
schools of each language group to receive fifty free
copies of the Student text and five free copies of
the Teacher's manual. The Association of Law
Societies has made seed monies available for some
of the initial publications but it will be necessary to
print many more books and to encourage donors to
contribute towards their publication.
It is hoped that ultimately the different
departments of education will purchase the books
or dOllors will donate free copies, particularly to
the black education departments or individual
black schools. Ideally each schoolchild should
have his or her own copy but this would be a very
expensive project.
Ultimately it is hoped that street law will become
part of the formal school curriculum as it is in the
United States and will be in Lesotho from 1988.
The street -law programme has the potential to
build a future generation of South Africans of all
races who will be the most educated, articulate and
thinking citizens on the continent of Africa. 0
AUGUSTUS 1987