Comparing American and British Legal Education Systems: Lessons for Commonwealth African Law Schools
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Comparing American and British Legal Education Systems: Lessons f ...

Chapter 1:  Introduction
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As a consequence, South Africa‘s legal system was a natural attraction to Zimbabwe. The racist Zimbabwe, as it was then, developed its legal system imitating developments in the legal system of the then apartheid South Africa.

In the case of Swaziland and Lesotho, these two countries have been geographical and economic enclaves of South Africa. Therefore, the transmission of legal values from South Africa to these two weaker neighbouring countries has progressed over a long period of time due, in part, to the sharing of some legal institutions7 and to the geographical proximity of the countries. But more intriguing is the case of Botswana. Botswana lies further north of South Africa and is neighbours with Zambia. Yet, Botswana embraced Roman-Dutch law, although it lies further north from South Africa. Equally interesting is Namibia‘s case since, for the most part, Namibia was under German colonial rule. Yet, we see that from the time South Africa’ Afrikaner-led National Party gained political power in 1948,

…Namibia exchanged one colonial experience for another. South Africa saw Namibia as, potentially, a fifth province for their country… In the late1950s and early 1960s, as in South Africa, the living quarters of black and coloured Namibians in towns were torn down. These residents, according to the principles of Apartheid, now had to be moved out of Windhoek city which was reserved for whites only or ‘ Slegs blankes’ (a term that was to be used often in the years that followed). So-called ‘ coloured’ Namibians were also to be divided from black Namibians.