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Credit: Robert Laramie
Camden Provost Roger Dennis chats with
the Hon. Yvonne Mokgoro, center, a
justice on the Constitutional Court of
South Africa, and Fikile Magubane,
consul- general, with the South African
consulate in New York. Mokgoro visited
the Camden campus in October to launch
the first judicial exchange program
between South Africa and the U.S.
Through the partnership, Camden law
students have the opportunity to clerk
for the highest court in South Africa.
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Camden law students now have the opportunity to clerk for the highest court in South Africa, thanks to a new collaborative effort of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the U.S. District Court of New Jersey and the School of Law-Camden.
The Hon. Yvonne Mokgoro, a justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, visited the Camden campus last month to formally launch the International Judicial and Judicial Clerkship Development Program, the first judicial exchange between her nation and the United States.
“This is a very important collaboration between two countries, between theory and practice,” Mokgoro said. “It is very, very important for us to hand over the baton to our young leaders. We do not want history to judge us and question how it is that our young lawyers failed to take forward the ideals of two great nations.”
Camden is hosting two law clerks from South Africa’s highest court as they learn the United States system through a special arrangement with Judge Joel Rosen and the U.S. District Court in Camden. Similarly, Lesley Struthers and Audrey Allen, 2004 graduates of the Camden law school, recently returned to the United States from Johannesburg after serving as clerks to the Constitutional Court, that nation’s analog to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ray Solomon, dean of the School of Law-Camden, said that the program allows the law school to internationalize the legal experience for its students. “It’s important that we in the United States should learn from South Africa, and we have a lot to learn from a country overcoming a past that we, unfortunately, share,” Solomon said. “It would be arrogant to think that we don’t have a lot to learn.” In addition, he said, the program will foster an open collaboration between the South African judicial system and the Camden law school, which will share its expertise on sub-national constitutions as South Africa’s many provinces begin to develop their own state constitutions.
During Mokgoro’s visit, U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) welcomed the South African justice with greetings from the 109th Congress of the United States. “The rule of law is a very fragile right,” he said. “Those who live, study and work here [at Rutgers-Camden] have committed their lives to the rule of law, as have Justice Mokgoro and her fellow citizens in South Africa.”
The event was a homecoming of sorts for the South African Justice: Mokgoro earned her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania before becoming the first black African, and the first woman, named to the constitutional court of her nation.
She said that the goals of South Africa and the U.S. are in the constitutions of each nation. “We must provide our young people with the skills to fulfill those goals to the best of their abilities. By understanding the legal systems of another nation, they can identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own nations and, we hope, use this opportunity to be creative and bring improvement to their own systems,” Mokgoro said.
That process already has begun. Bulelwa Rudo Madekurozwa, a South African clerking for Rosen as part of this exchange, noted that her experience in New Jersey already has opened her eyes to the notion that South Africa’s constitution is very exciting and must be upheld. “What happens to the constitution of the future is in our hands,” Madekurozwa said. “We must take this seriously.”
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