Law Journal:
"Contains articles and comments by academic writers on legal issues"
Journal Articles:
Journal articles are written by researchers or scholars who work in a professional or in an academic field.
An editorial board evaluates articles submitted. Subject specialists decide whether or not the article adds valuable, important, or new information to the subject and whether or not the research has been conducted correctly, academically, and in an ethical or moral way. Articles thus reviewed or examined are called ‘peer reviewed’.
Journal articles quote sources to substantiate information or statements and also to have an academic reading list of sources consulted for writing the article.
Consult journal articles:
There are three different websites you can search for law journal articles published in SA:
Take note that the first two databases only contain references and not the full text of articles in journals, and only cover journal issues that were published from 1980 onwards.
However, more and more journals are providing free access online and besides using the websites listed below you can also use the Sabinet website (www.journals.co.za) to search most of the law journals published in SA all at once (articles published from 2000 onwards). In order to view the list of the law journals that Sabinet includes in their SA ePublications database, click on the tab ‘Law collection’ (this collection of law journals published in SA includes both subscription-based and open access journals, but not all of them).
You can search by author, keyword, year, the title of the journal article, journal title amongst other fields when you use the Sabinet website. If you are interested in a certain journal you can then view the article and if it is an open-access journal you will be able to download the content at no cost. If the journal is subscription-based, your institution or law firm will have to pay a Sabinet subscription in order to view the article.
To access older law journals (published in South Africa) there is also an archive of older journal articles available at The African Journal Archive (www.ajarchive.org) is a Sabinet Gateway project in conjunction with the Carnegie Corporation. There are some law journals on the platform that can be accessed free of charge.
Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals
Law Journals
African Human Rights Law Journal
De Jure Law Journal
De Rebus Law Journal
Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
SADC Law Journal
South Africa: Law, Democracy and Development Law Journal
Speculum Juris
University of the Western Cape,
Robert Sobukwe Road,
Bellville,
7535
Tel: 021 959 2946