LEGAL TRAINING IN AFRICA

I was in Central and East Africa in the early part of 1961 and I had the good fortune to be able to discuss the problems of legal education with Chief Justices, politicians, Attomeys-General and practising lawyers.

When I was there, there were in Uganda twenty-three practising African lawyers, in Kenya seven, and in Tanganyika one. In Northern Rhodesia there was one African who had passed the English Bar examinations but had not succeeded in passing an examination that the Northern Rhodesia Law Society insists upon people passing before they can practise in Northern Rhodesia. All of the African lawyers that I have mentioned had been called to the English Bar. Not one had had the training of an English solicitor; but there they were in practice, dealing with clients’ money, advising clients on day to day affairs. There were also, of course, a good many Indian and European lawyers.

In all of the countries I have mentioned there is a fused profession. Although I am a strong supporter of the two branches system for England, I recognize that there are many countries where it is impos­sible, and I believe the fused profession is the only system that can work in East Africa and Northern Rhodesia.

With the coming of independence it is natural that each country should look to its own nationals to administer law and justice; but it follows that those who are to do that must be adequately qualified and, as Lord Denning’s Committee has pointed out, that, where there is fusion, training in the practical side of the law is vital.

No one will disagree with me when I say that we want to see a great increase in African lawyers practising in Africa and that we want to see them properly qualified.

use to his society and a disgrace to his profession; so it is a mistake to let a lawyer qualify too easily.

I have already said that the first requirement of the man who is going to be a lawyer is that he should have a sound general education. It should be at least equal to the standard required for university entrance, because without that basic education it simply is not possible for a man to learn and to understand law. Next, he requires a sound theoretical training in law. Such a training can be given by the Council of Legal Education or by a University (though some English Universities omit certain important legal matters from their curricula). He must also be trained in the ethics of the legal profession; and he must know the practical side of his work. So, if Africans are to run the whole of their legal system, those requirements must be kept in mind when we consider the training of African lawyers.

I have said enough about basic education. The theory of the law can be taught well in a university. A new Law Faculty has been started at Dar es Salaam and from that I expect great things; but, like the man who gets called to the English Bar, the graduate from Dar es Salaam will know nothing of the practical side, nothing of accounts and little or nothing of the other matters I have mentioned. Nor do I think that the system of articles can work in the African countries that I have seen. I say that because the majority of those who are practising there have been trained as barristers only—some in India, and some in England.

I have stressed the importance of accounts. Amongst solicitors in England, the Law Society, by its rules and strict discipline, has brought about a universal system of keeping accounts; and, while some offices are much more efficient than others, all offices are run more or less on the same lines.

In my opinion there are only two ways in which this can be done. Either, after a law student has taken his degree, he should do a spell in an English solicitor’s office and take the English solicitors’ Trust Accounts and Book-keeping Examination, or there should be a post­graduate law school or law schools which he can attend in the African countries. In such schools first and foremost I would have the graduate train for the book-keeping and trust accounts examination. It may well be that six months would be needed for that purpose, because it is not an easy examination and it is imperative that everyone should pass

that examination in such a way that the examiners can be sure that he really knows the subject. Then I would have a further twelve months in the practical application of the law, the working of the legal system and the ethics of the profession. I would have such law schools staffed by practical men and not by academic lawyers, and I should like to see a kind of superman who would keep his eye on all the postgraduate law schools, whether in East Africa, West Africa or any other part of Africa. At the end of the second part of the postgraduate law school course I would require another examination to be passed. For prefer­ence I would have an oral examination, and I think that in the early days in Africa that may be possible; but if ever you get such numbers of candidates for the legal profession in Africa as we get for the solicitors’ examinations in England, an oral examination would become impossible because of the time factor. Many of those interested would, indeed, like to see every articled clerk put through an oral examination as part of his final, but to do that we should have to have practical lawyers conducting the examination.

I understand that the course at Dar es Salaam will be a three-year course. If, therefore, this was followed by the one and a half year postgraduate practical course that I have suggested, it would take the men four and a half years to qualify. I know they can get called to the English Bar in much less time than that; but at the present time, in England, if a man has taken a degree he needs six years to qualify as an English solicitor (three years at University and three years in articles), and if he has not taken a degree, but goes straight into a solicitor’s office, he has to do five years’ articles.

When I was in Africa it was suggested to me that a law school could be run in their spare time by lawyers carrying on practice. I do not believe that such a scheme would work. The postgraduate law school that I envisage would be a whole time law school where candidates would attend five whole days a week If a law school were staffed by lawyers engaged in their own practice, the law school would, almost certainly, be an evening affair. That would not be satisfactory. It is essential that those who have taken their degrees should go to the postgraduate school and concentrate on their work there. We should never see a satisfactory result if the classes were evening classes.

At the risk of offending a few people I must say that I think it unfortunate that some men who have been called to the English Bar, and have had no practical experience in the practice of the law, have been allowed, without any further qualification, to practise in countries where there is a fused legal profession.

I mentioned earlier that I have learned something of the native courts in some of the countries that I have visited. Many of these courts administer no written law and have no established practice.

I understand that in all the East African countries there is much to be done to establish ownership to land and get it all properly registered. That, again, is a task which will call for practical knowledge.

Those Africans who look forward to practising as lawyers in Africa will, therefore, have to face up to a great challenge. Those of us who know the countries that have already attained or are about to attain independence all wish to see them successful. One essential to such success is that their laws shall be administered by people who have been properly trained to that end.