Would you like your law teaching to make a real difference?
Justice Defenders (JD) (Get Involved | Justice Defenders) is a charity which works with prisoners in prisons in a number of African countries. One of their projects is to bring legal education into prison as a force for justice. 67 prisoners and prison officers, studying together, have gained law degrees from the University of London via this scheme. The law students are required to work during and after their studies in the established JD paralegal programme for the benefit of other prisoners. The para legal programme has had remarkable successes in bringing appeals against conviction and sentence, preparing accused persons for court and drafting pleas. The para legal students brought constitutional challenges against the death penalty both in Kenya and Uganda and were partially successful, immediately bringing over 400 people off death rows in those countries. The Supreme Court judges were deeply impressed by the advocacy of the students and the judges’ support for JD’s activities has been very powerful. This year, having fought a path through the regulatory hurdles, the first of JD’s prisoner graduates have been admitted to the Kenyan Bar.
A small cohort of incarcerated students is about to begin the first year of the External London LLB. They are all inmates of male and female prisons in Kenya. This intake will have full access to the University of London’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), which will greatly improve the students’ learning opportunities. In addition, Justice Defenders provides three levels of support for the students. Firstly, administrative, liaising with the External London registry. Secondly, teaching assistants who have previously studied on the program, some of whom may still be in prison. Thirdly, Law Teachers.
Would you be prepared to act as a Law Teacher?
Justice Defenders is looking to recruit at least one voluntary unpaid law teacher in the subjects in each of the 4 first year core subjects of the External London LLB:
Contract Law
Criminal Law
Public Law
Legal Systems and Methods
The law teacher will be the subject leader, working with a Teaching Assistant (TA) who will be physically based in Kenya. The law teacher would need to follow the External London syllabus and conduct a two hour online teaching session with the students which are normally in the mornings (East Africa Time = GMT + 3 hours) once a week over two semesters. The total workload would be around 2 – 4 hours a week per module during those semesters focusing on mentorship of the TA and direct delivery of critical topics and oversight of other topics delivered by the TA. There may be opportunities to conduct face to face sessions in the Kenyan prisons. Students should also be prepared for the External London LLB examinations.
If you are interested or would like to know more, please contact Nick Johnson (nckjj@aol.com) Induction and training will be given to the volunteer law teachers.
