Street Law – Challenging inequality and leveraging social justice for vulnerable communities
Submitted by
University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Summary of the impact:
This overview profiles a teaching and learning innovation in one of the final year elective modules within the University of KwaZulu-Natal, School of Law: Street Law. This approach sees teams of final year LL B students placed at local NGOs to address social justice issues and challenge instances of inequality and discrimination.
In each of these spaces, the impact on clients and beneficiaries of these organisations is profound. The individual impact is one of the empowerment of individuals to know their rights, identify unlawful and unconstitutional behavior, and be able to take appropriate action to access remedial measures.
The broader sectoral impact is derived from the strategic advocacy interventions undertaken to challenge systemic patterns of abuse and discrimination of marginalized communities, such as homeless people, informal traders and residents of informal settlements, at the hands of official of the eThekwini Municipality and Metro Police, for instance. This sees a direct challenge to the Municipality to address unconstitutional behavior by its officials, and revise its bylaws to remove unconstitutional, discriminatory provisions.