University of Dar es Salaam School of Law

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Law and Access to Justice: The Rhetoric and the Reality
(East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights, 2001) Shivji, Issa G.
This article discusses the marked contrast between theory and reality of law and access to justice in Tanzania. Based on a legal matter the author prosecuted some twenty years ago, it first reflects on the problems of the needy in accessing what is essentially an alien, class law and justice. The article considers issues pertaining to legal education, beginning with the author's narrative of his experiences with teaching and learning law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Dar es Salaam. It finally concludes that there is a yawning schism between need and demand in legal education. Whereas there is a clear need for training a lawyer-as-a-social-critique and lawyer-as-a-professional-craftsperson, grounded in the vision of a rational and humane social order, the demand is for a lawyer-mechanic to mend the ruthless machines of the globalizing corporate world. However, the vocation of universities should be to train a lawyer who combines in him/her a social critique, and a professional craftsperson, and thus is guided by his/her social reponsibilities.