Westville Law Students test their skills in front of real judges.
As part of the integrated approach to studying, Varsity College Westville hosts an annual moot court for its final year law students. A moot court is a constructed court platform where law students are given the opportunity to practice their advocacy skills.
Twelve Varsity College Westville Law students participated in the moot court and from this, four were selected to go to the finals. The finalists were Cassy Vorster, Fatima Laher, Nischal Patel and Skye Krummeck. Cassy Vorster and Skye Krummeck argued the appellants case and Fatima Laher and Nischal Patel were the respondents. The judges who presided over the moot court were Johan Ploos van Amstel and Soma Naidoo.
The finals were held on the 31 August at the Westville Country Club. The room was filled with excitement and some nerves as the final four were preparing their cases. Family, friends and lecturers were all there to encourage and support the finalists.
Once the case started, the judges were introduced and the participants began to defend their cases to the best of their abilities. As they argued, the judges began to question the 4 participants in order to push their limits and test their true advocacy skills. Both cases were defended exceptionally well. The judges were then left with the difficult task of choosing the winner and runner up of the Varsity College Moot Final 2011. The Winner was Cassy Vorster and the runner-up was Nischal Patel, however, all students involved gained very valuable experience from the event.
Awards of certificates and trophies were presented to all participating students. The four students that made their cases in the final received vacation work, whilst the winner and runner up received book vouchers from Lexis Nexis to the value of R1000.00 and R500.00 respectively.
"I am so grateful to Varsity College for hosting this event as this brings great exposure for its law students." said Suraya Govender, Law student at Varsity College Westville.