Legal Mobilization

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments and civic actors used the law in distinctive ways. The pandemic seemed to place the world in a single time zone; for a moment, both the so-called First and Third World shared a sense of catastrophe. Reflecting on the potential for legal learning through government and civil society's responses to the pandemic in the Netherlands and South Africa, this chapter grasps an opportunity to specifically contemplate the role of legal mobilization. In this transcribed and edited conversation between two colleagues, the function of legal mobilization as well as the role of critical constitutionalism – both interpretive lenses for analysing a crisis of (legitimate) governance in South Africa and the Netherlands – are unpacked.