Deputy Minister Andries Nel: Thirds Expert Symposium on Social Justice and Equality Law Education

Theme: “Social Justice Undergirded: Transformative Teaching of the Law: Perspectives on Advancing Transformative Pedagogy in Legal Education”

Programme Director,
Professor Thuli Madonsela, Director of the Centre for Social Justice and Law Trust Research Chair,
Members of the Judiciary present,
Esteemed academics, educators, and researchers,
Representatives of the legal profession,
Members of civil society,
Student leaders and future custodians of justice,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this Third Expert Symposium on Social Justice and Equality Law Education.
I convey the warm regards of Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development.

We thank Professor Thuli Madonsela and the Centre for Social Justice for creating a space that brings together scholars, educators, practitioners, and students from South Africa, the continent, and beyond, united by a shared concern: how legal education can meaningfully advance social justice in our time.

We gather as South Africa approaches a major milestone.

In 2026, our country marks 30 years since the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

We approach the 30th anniversary of our Constitution following closely on the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter in 2025.
The Constitution is the supreme law of our Republic.

It is a democratic revolutionary framework that mandates and guides the fundamental transformation of our society into a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous nation.

It affirms that the people shall govern, that all shall be equal before the law, and that dignity, work, asset ownership, shelter and security are not privileges, but rights.

For three decades, it has anchored democratic governance, built independent institutions, expanded access to justice, and enabled major social advances in housing, education, healthcare, water, electricity and social protection.

It has empowered decisive action to dismantle the legacies of racial, gender and class oppression.

Yet this anniversary takes place at a time of ever more strident attacks on constitutional values, the rule of law, and a rules-based international order, globally and domestically, including a targeted campaign against the continuing process of liberating the majority of South Africans from the legacy apartheid colonialism.

The task of all progressive and patriotic South Africans is therefore twofold: to defend and deepen constitutional democracy, and to ensure it delivers more decisively for the poor and the marginalised in the resolution of the triple, inter-related and mutually reinforcing contradictions of race, class and gender.

We must engage in a year-long 30th Anniversary programme that ignites mass constitutional education, active citizenship, youth mobilisation, and cultural programmes, while confronting corruption, disinformation and democratic disengagement.

This should include the reciting of the Preamble to the Constitution in all schools, government institutions, Parliament and provincial legislatures, and at national events as well as on the national broadcaster and other media – just as we have done here today.

This anniversary invites not celebration alone, but also sober reflection: on progress made, on unfinished work, and on whether our institutions, including our universities and law faculties, are adequately preparing those who will carry the constitutional project forward.

The theme of this symposium: “Social Justice Undergirded: Transformative Teaching of the Law”, speaks directly to that responsibility.

Social justice as constitutional promise and lived experience

Our Constitution commits us to build a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights, a society in which every citizen is equally protected by law.

Yet we know the experience of justice is not evenly distributed.

Many encounter the law not as protection but as distance: unfamiliar processes, complex language, unmanageable costs, and institutions that can feel alien and unapproachable.

This gap exists and persists because rights do not live only in texts; they live, or fail to live, in material conditions.

Access to land and shelter, work and income, transport and safety, education and healthcare, these conditions profoundly shape whether a person can assert a right, navigate an institution, secure representation, or sustain a claim.

As President Nelson Mandela pointed out in his “Black Man in a White Man’s Court” statement in 1962:
“It is true that an African who is charged in a court of law enjoys, on the surface, the same rights and privileges as an accused who is white in so far as the conduct of this trial is concerned.

He is governed by the same rules of procedure and evidence as apply to a white accused.

But it would be grossly inaccurate to conclude from this fact that an African consequently enjoys equality before the law.”

This is why legal education cannot treat the law as though it floats above society.

The law is embedded in institutions; institutions are embedded in history; and history is embedded in relationships of power.

These relationships involve tension, between exclusion and inclusion, wealth and poverty, formal equality and substantive equality, promise and implementation.

And it is precisely through these tensions that social change occurs: sometimes gradually, through incremental reform; and sometimes abruptly, when accumulated pressures make the old arrangements untenable and a qualitative shift becomes unavoidable.

The concept note for this symposium reminds us that social justice is not a destination but a responsibility, one that grows heavier each time we turn away from inequality.

That responsibility belongs to all of us, but it is especially acute for legal educators, because law faculties shape those who will later shape our justice system: judges, prosecutors, advocates, attorneys, policy advisers, public servants, and activists.

And as we approach the Constitution’s 30-year milestone, we must confront a further truth: the realisation of constitutional rights require a capable, ethical, developmental state, one that is present in people’s daily lives, that delivers services with integrity, that treats the public with dignity, and that makes rights real through accessible institutions.

Where institutions are weakened by corruption, by inefficiency, by indifference, or by capture of any kind, it is the poor, always the poor, who pay the highest price in delayed justice and denied remedies.

Legal education, therefore, must produce professionals who do not only work within institutions, but who are committed to strengthening and transforming them, through ethical leadership, including progressive thought leadership, accountability, and service grounded in the public interest.

“Undergirded”: social justice as foundation, not ornament

The word “undergirded” is central to your theme.

It emphasises that social justice must not be peripheral but foundational to legal education in all its dimensions: curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and institutional culture.
If social justice truly undergirds legal education, then it must be present across the curriculum:

• in constitutional law, taught as an ongoing transformative project, not as a bulwark in defence of an unjust status quo;
• in common law subjects, where private law shapes access to resources and opportunity;
• in employment law, where exploitation, and inequality are lived daily;
• in equality and anti-discrimination law, as tools for structural transformation,
• in procedure, which can either enable or obstruct justice; and
• in practice and access to justice, through courts, administrative institutions, and alternative dispute resolution.

Your programme reflects this integrated approach, addressing theory, practice, interdisciplinary engagement, and pedagogical innovation, including simulations, role-play, and serious gaming.

A justice-underpinned curriculum also speaks to broader national imperatives: ethical renewal, institutional integrity, social cohesion, and rebuilding trust between the state and the people.
Trust is not restored through rhetoric. It is restored when institutions deliver fairly, act transparently, and place people, not power or profit, at the centre of decision-making.

Transformative teaching as formation of ethical professionals

Transformative teaching is not simply about new techniques. It is about forming a particular kind of legal professional.

A justice-centred legal education must produce graduates who can:

• master legal doctrine and reasoning;
• understand the social, economic, and historical contexts in which law operates through progressive tools of analysis; and
• exercise ethical judgment in conditions of inequality, uncertainty, and institutional constraint.

This requires acknowledging that social change does not unfold smoothly.

Systems contain contradictions, between wealth and poverty, inclusion and exclusion, formal equality and substantive justice.

Over time, these tensions accumulate, producing moments of rupture, reform, or renewal.
Legal professionals must be equipped to recognise these dynamics and to act within them in ways that advance social justice.

Transformative pedagogy prepares students for a world where outcomes are often non-linear, where small procedural choices can have disproportionate effects, and where justice requires constant learning, adaptation, and accountability.

Pedagogy that engages reality

Justice cannot be taught as abstraction alone. It must be taught as practice and responsibility.

Problem-based learning exposes students to real-world complexity: incomplete facts, competing narratives, unequal power, and ethical dilemmas. It reflects the reality of legal practice far better than rote learning.

Clinical legal education and community engagement allow students to encounter the law as lived experience. Sitting with a client who cannot access documentation, afford transport, or navigate bureaucracy teaches lessons no textbook can convey.

This aligns with the symposium’s emphasis on experiential learning and collaborative models.

Simulations, role-play, and serious gaming, highlighted in your programme, help students understand how systems behave, how unintended consequences arise, and how injustice can hide behind technical rules.

Assessment as an expression of values

Assessment tells students what matters. If we assess only speed and memorisation, we implicitly devalue ethics, context, and judgment.

Transformative assessment must reward:

• legal reasoning,
• ethical discernment,
• problem-solving in context, and
• clear communication with both professional and public audiences.

This is not lowering standards. It is raising them, because justice demands competence, integrity, and accountability.

Collective renewal in legal education

This symposium builds on previous gatherings that committed to collaboration, innovation, and mainstreaming social justice in legal education.

The establishment of the Social Justice and Equality Law Educators’ Association reflects recognition that transformation cannot depend on isolated individuals.
It must be sustained through networks, shared resources, and collective action.

In this regard, we hope that these networks will include the National School of Government, the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College and the South African Judicial Education Institute.

Artificial intelligence, legal education, and the future of social justice

Any serious conversation about the future of legal education and justice must now engage a profound and accelerating reality: artificial intelligence is reshaping how law is taught, how it is practiced, and how justice is accessed, or denied.

This development is not neutral. Tools are shaped by the conditions under which they are developed, by the data they are trained on, and by the incentives and interests that drive their design and use.

They can widen access and empower the excluded, or they can deepen exclusion, obscure accountability, and reproduce inequality in new forms.

In the classroom, students now encounter tools that can summarise cases, generate arguments, draft documents, and simulate dialogue.

If used thoughtfully, these tools can help students overcome barriers of language, confidence, and access to resources.
They can support innovative simulations and problem-based learning environments, and free students from mechanical tasks so that they can focus on deeper reasoning.
But transformative pedagogy requires that we resist a dangerous temptation: outsourcing legal thinking.

If students accept automated outputs uncritically, we risk producing graduates who can generate text but cannot exercise judgment; who can appear competent but cannot verify; who can produce plausible reasoning without being able to justify it.

This would be a profound threat to ethical and transformative practice.

Legal education must therefore teach students not only how to use new tools, but how to question them:

• What assumptions are embedded in the outputs?
• Which jurisdictions and voices are privileged or ignored?
• How do biases, racial, gendered, economic, become encoded and reproduced?
• Where does responsibility lie when automated tools mislead, misrepresent, or cause harm?

A justice-centred pedagogy must cultivate technological literacy grounded in constitutional values, ethics, and accountability.
In legal practice, artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing contract review, litigation strategy, administrative decision-making, risk scoring, and even the ways in which people are triaged through systems.

Used responsibly, such tools may help reduce cost barriers, improve efficiency, and expand legal information and assistance to underserved communities.
But the risks are equally significant.

Automated systems can entrench inequality when they rely on historical data drawn from unequal systems.

They can obscure accountability when decisions appear technical rather than discretionary. They can displace human judgment in contexts where empathy, context, and moral reasoning are essential.

For communities already marginalised by poverty, race, gender, disability, or geography, there is a real danger of a two-tier system: one justice system that is human-centred and responsive for those with resources; and another that is automated, opaque, and rigid for everyone else.

From a justice perspective, we must be able to ask - and answer - fundamental questions:

• How do we ensure transparency in automated legal decision-making?
• How do we protect procedural fairness when algorithms influence outcomes?
• How do we safeguard dignity when people are “processed” rather than heard?
• Who is accountable when harm occurs?

Transformative legal education must prepare graduates for a world in which law, technology, and society are deeply intertwined.

Students must learn that efficiency does not automatically equal justice; that small design choices can have large social consequences; that interventions in one part of the justice ecosystem can create ripple effects in many others; and that reforms must be monitored and adjusted in response to real-world feedback.

In short, these tools do not reduce the need for justice-oriented lawyers.

They increase it, because the more powerful the tools become, the greater the need for ethical judgment, accountability, and constitutional discipline.

The justice system’s stake in legal education

From the perspective of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, the relationship between legal education and access to justice is direct.

Our courts, administrative institutions, and dispute resolution mechanisms require professionals who can:

• advance constitutional values,
• protect procedural fairness,
• strengthen administrative justice,
• improve and expand Alternative Dispute Resolution, and
• serve the public with competence and integrity.

When legal education fails to integrate social context and ethical responsibility, the justice system inherits that gap, through weak litigation, poor-quality service, diminished ethical culture, and inequitable outcomes.

But when legal education is undergirded by social justice, the justice system benefits: it gains professionals who understand interdependence; who anticipate unintended consequences; and who see justice as a practice of constant learning, adaptation, and accountability.

This is inseparable from the broader national task of building capable institutions, renewing public ethics, combating corruption, and restoring trust.
The transformation of the justice system is not simply about internal reforms, new policies, or modern technology.

It is about building a society where every South African — whether rich or poor, rural or urban, man or woman, child or elder — can live with dignity, security, and confidence that the law will protect them. It is about giving substance to the promise of our Constitution.

We have behind us three decades of hard work.

• We have dismantled the fragmented apartheid-era administrations and replaced them with a single Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
• We have diversified our judiciary and legal profession.
• We have created specialised courts, broadened legal aid, and taken significant steps to integrate traditional justice within the constitutional order.
• We have begun the digital transformation of our systems.

These are achievements that matter, and they should not be overlooked. But we must also be honest: our journey is far from complete.

• Justice Vision 2000’s call for a justice system that is fast, effective, inexpensive, and people-centred remains only partially fulfilled.
• Backlogs persist, digital platforms are still unstable, and communities in rural and township areas continue to feel underserved.
• Victims of gender-based violence still struggle to receive the protection and support they deserve.
• Corruption and organised crime still erode public trust.

The challenge before us is therefore clear. Over the next five years, we must complete the unfinished business.

• We must stabilise and expand our digital justice systems, eliminate backlogs, professionalise court management, and build prevention into the DNA of our work.
• We must place victims and communities at the centre of the justice system, ensuring that their voices are heard and their needs are met.
• We must align every programme, budget, and performance indicator with the priorities of the Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy and the Medium-Term Development Plan.
• This requires discipline in planning, boldness in leadership, and honesty in measurement.
• It requires us to build partnerships with civil society, local government, traditional leaders, and the private sector, because justice cannot be delivered by the state alone.

These partnerships must include scholars, educators, practitioners, and students of the law.

A call to action at the constitutional horizon

I would like to conclude by aligning my remarks with the symposium’s own objectives: showcasing innovative pedagogy, deepening social justice consciousness, strengthening collaboration, and advancing a programme of action for mainstreaming social justice in teaching, research, policy engagement, and public scholarship.

As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Constitution in 2026, we should treat this moment as a renewed commitment to making constitutionalism practical and felt in the daily experience of ordinary people.

Guided by the agenda of this symposium, it appears that there are six practical areas of focus:

• Mainstream justice across the curriculum: Ensuring every subject includes social context, progressive tools of analysis, and constitutional values.
• Expand experiential and community-connected learning, strengthening the link between theory and practice: Clinics, placements, partnerships with advice offices, and public legal education.
• Support pedagogical innovation: Including simulations and role-play that cultivate empathy, reflexivity, and problem-solving.
• Align assessment with justice-centred outcomes: Rewarding reasoning, ethics, and social responsiveness, not recall alone.
• Strengthen educator collaboration through SOJELEA and other networks and institutions.
• Build justice-centred technological literacy: To ensure that future legal professionals can use emerging tools responsibly, challenge misuse, and protect dignity, fairness, and accountability in an increasingly automated legal landscape.

Conclusion

We commend the Centre for Social Justice and all participants for advancing this work.

May your deliberations contribute the task of all progressive and patriotic South Africans that we referred to above: To defend and deepen constitutional democracy, and to ensure it delivers more decisively for the poor and the marginalised.

So that, in the words of the Preamble to the Constitution, we “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person.”

We thank you.

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