Moot Court

A moot court is a simulated court process in which students are given a case to argue as if they were in a real court. It offers students an opportunity to enhance their research and writing skills while engaging with the law in a more practical way. At the University of Johannesburg moot courts form an integral part of the curriculum with all first-year students completing a compulsory internal moot court as part of the module Introduction to Legal Studies. Students again participate in moot court as part of the module Civil Procedure in their third year. The UJ Faculty of Law additionally participates in various national and international moot court competitions such as the Kovsies First Year Moot Court Competition, the Centre for Child Law Moot Court Competition, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) International Arbitration Moot.

The Faculty has a long history of excellent performance in these external moot court competitions and in 2022 we were the overall winners of the South African national rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the Kader Asmal Moot Court Competition. The Faculty further received several awards for the best written submissions in 2022 including for the Kovsies First Year Moot Court Competition, the Centre for Child Law Moot, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS)/Student Litigation Society (SLS) Public Interest Law Moot, the Kader Asmal Moot Court Competition and the South African national rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.