According to the Legal Practice Act (LPA), an individual will be permitted to be admitted and enrolled as a legal practitioner if said individual has obtained an LLB degree from a university registered in South Africa.

The KwaZulu-Natal Law Society refused to register the articles of the Independent Institute of Education’s graduates, as they were of the viewpoint that the meaning of ‘university’ in the Higher Education Act allows only public universities, and not private independent institutions, to qualify as a university in terms of the Higher Education Act.

The applicant was a registered private higher education institution accredited to offer and confer four-year LLB Degrees. The Constitutional Court decided to give the word “university” its ordinary meaning, i.e. that any public or private institution can be deemed to be a “university” if the requirements for registration as a tertiary institution are met.