Chief Justice questions talk of five-year LLB course
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has questioned why there was talk of extending the LLB programme to five years in SA‚ when countries in Europe offered high-quality law programmes in three years. Most SA universities offer a four-year LLB programme‚ except the University of the Witwatersrand‚ which scrapped the four-year programme in 2014, notes a TimesLIVE report.
The university then introduced the LLB as a two or three-year postgraduate qualification. There have been complaints about the quality of graduates with the four-year LLB programme from members of the Bar and law firms. Critics claim that the four-year programme does not adequately prepare students for the legal profession.
The Law Society of SA requested in 2012 that the LLB be redesigned as a postgraduate qualification after complaints that some law graduates could not read‚ count or reason. Mogoeng said he suspected the problem in SA had to do with a transition from basic education to higher education.
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