Mandela at 100 N E LSON MANDE L A AT WITS
By Bruce Murray
OVER THE BAR
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elson Mandela, whose birth centenary was celebrated this year, was a law student at Wits University from 1943 to 1949. But he did not graduate with a Wits LLB, failing the final examination on three occasions between 1947 and 1949. On the third occasion he applied to the Dean of Law, Professor HR Hahlo, for permission to write supplementary examinations in the three papers he failed, but this was denied him as the regulations allowed for a maximum of two supplementaries. Evidently, the advice Hahlo subsequently gave Mandela was to abandon the LLB, which was required to become an advocate, a career Hahlo deemed unsuited to Africans as they would get no business, and instead to qualify directly as an attorney. Mandela took the advice, passing the Attorney’s Admission examination at the end of 1951. There is a strong tradition that places the blame firmly on Hahlo for Mandela’s failure to qualify for a Wits LLB. Hahlo was a racist who gave Mandela, the first African law student at Wits, the gratuitous advice that Africans, and women, were unsuited to the study of law. “His view,” Mandela recounted in his autobiography, “was that law was a social science and that women and Africans were not
disciplined enough to master its intricacies.” Hahlo was unhelpful but Mandela ultimately passed all the courses he took from Hahlo—six out of 14—except Jurisprudence in 1947. Mandela had always struggled with examinations at Wits, but his performance in his final-year LLB exams is something of a puzzle. By 1947 he had completed his articles at Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, the firm of Lazar Sidelsky (BA 1933, LLB 1936), and with the aid of a substantial loan from the Bantu Welfare Trust—a loan he never repaid—he was freed to study full-time. Yet, in 1947, he failed all six papers badly, followed by four failures the next year and three in 1949. A likely explanation is that his activities in the newly formed ANC Youth League had taken over much of his life, his having been made secretary in 1947, responsible for political organisation. After qualifying as an attorney, Mandela decided on another attempt at the LLB, enrolling again at Wits for the 1952 academic year, but he never really made a go of it, becoming deeply involved as volunteerin-chief in helping organise the Defiance Campaign. On 18 July his registration was cancelled for nonpayment of fees. A month later Mandela opened his own law practice, soon to be joined by Oliver Tambo.
“His [Hahlo’s] view was that law was a social science and that women and Africans were not disciplined enough to master its intricacies.” Nelson Mandela 44 W I T S R E V I E W M A G A Z I N E
