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The time has come for a local law school

Apr 07, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
The ‘on-again, off-again’ idea of a local law school is an idea whose time has long come. This has only been made absolutely clear and fiercely urgent with the advent of the “impasse” between the Government of Guyana and the Council for Legal Education.
We have a most egregious situation here but one which offers us a unique opportunity and with it perhaps the chance of something great. This singular moment can impact generations to come of students in Guyana and in the Caribbean who enjoy our education at the University of Guyana.
Head of the Department of Law Sheldon McDonald often says that, “Law is the interstitial fluid of society; it is the bone marrow of society.” Indeed without the law society descends into anarchy. Hence a proper legal education has its fitting purpose and place. Those who articulate, negotiate and interpret the law have value to any society intent on the rule of law, and law and order.
That being said, I am currently a final year student reading for my Legum Baccalaureus, LL.B, our last exams should conclude at the end of May 2014. What happens next is anybody’s guess since the current impasse seems only to escalate with time.
I feel deeply aggrieved by the decision to suspend the 25 automatic placements at HWLS. It would seem that the decision to do same was taken some time before the application process was opened. I cannot fathom the reason the CLE, knowing that its own LL.B programmes have more than enough students to satiate its HWLS quota, still opened the application process for entry into HWLS delivering false hopes of admittance.
The cost of applying, postage inclusive, in addition to the cost for the entrance examination for persons who chose that option combined is above the domestic minimum wage. And what cost do we put on our present psychological frustrations? Our students engaged a process only to be told a short time later that both avenues of entry were no longer viable options. Presently, most if not all other avenues would be closed as well and so we are all but stranded.
We were advised that the Eugene Depuch Law School in the Bahamas has spaces available but the fees are twice that of HWLS. I know I speak for many when I say that we do not have an extra US$20,000 per year knocking around for tuition and equal amount for yearly living expenses. The idea of a local law school is an idea whose time has come.
The benefits of a local law school have been enumerated eloquently in our dailies’ Editorials, articles and columns, so I will not rehearse them here. Suffice to say that the psychological and physical frustrations of trying to make the grades for entry into Law School and an opened, tedious, perhaps futile application process demand justice of their own.
Additionally, there are perhaps thousands of students across Guyana with dreams of pursuing Law who are presently at the high school level applying themselves to rigorous studies to get into the Department of Law, UG, in hopes of pursing the noble career of an Attorney-at-Law and who presently may themselves be in a quandary.
Sherod Avery Duncan
Student-at-Law, Class of 2014
President, UGSS, 2009-2010

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