Some concerns with Senior Counsel’s law school suggestions

Jun 13, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Allow me to respond to the learned Senior Counsel B T I Pollard’s letter “If the present law school difficulty is not overcome and the ideal of the law programme founders disintegrates, we shall have failed,” published in your newspapers, June 8, 2014.
Senior Counsel Pollard institutional knowledge is rich and his great service to the genesis of UWI/CLE Law Programme is praise worthy. But to turn a quote from a text of  English literature, Julius Caesar,  the esteemed Counsel’s recollection and recommendations ‘might fire the blood of ordinary men, be not fond to think that I bear such rebel’s blood’ and that my own humble submission for a local law school can be so easily dispatched.
Allow me to point out some concerns with what was laid out in the missive under the Senior Counsel’s measured pen.  In his letter he notes, “Guyana then began to explore the possibility of easing its contributions by introducing the second year here as well. UWI and the CLE, although sympathetic, were wary of incurring any risk to the hard won accreditation mentioned before, and decided that if Guyana wished to have the second year in Guyana, it should offer a third year as well as a complete UG degree.”
I humbly submit the section ‘The Guyanese Situation’ of the Barnett Report of 1996, which is a Council of Legal Education (CLE) official document, and in particular the paragraph 3.G.7. which reads: “In September 1993 the Attorney-General of Guyana informed the Council that the Faculty Board of U.W.I. had granted approval for U.G. to proceed with the Year II LL.B. programmes in Guyana for the academic year 1993/94 but did not advise of the stipulations which had been agreed. Neither the U.W.I. Faculty of Law nor the Council of Legal Education was formally advised by U.G. that as from the 1994/95 academic year it proposed to proceed with its own LL.B. degree. However, the Chairman advised the Council at its meeting in September 1994 that U.G. intended to proceed with the full LL.B. programme with effect from the 1994/95 academic year.”
Secondly, I wish to point out the learned Senior Counsel’s submission that, “Guyana’s quota of 25 students under the original agreement was preserved, the top 25 graduates of the UG degree programme being afforded automatic places at the Hugh Wooding Law School.” The same section (supra) at 3.G.8 reads, “Guyana had under the inter-governmental agreement an annual quota of 15. It is not clear how this quota came to be treated as 25, but in any event there was already a backlog of over 100 Guyanese students.  The decision to admit non-Guyanese to their second and third year programmes aggravated the problems, particularly as one of the academic factors to be dealt with was the disproportionate number of students to that of permanent full-time staff to students in the Guyanese programme and as to which concern had been expressed.”
Thirdly, Senior Counsel Pollard favors Attorney General Anil Nandlall position on a local law school but does not offer us why a position in the affirmative is negative. How could a position which enjoyed the CLE’s and Cabinet’s support in 2002 and the support of a task force put in place to examine such a proposal, administered by none other than the likes then Chancellor of the Judiciary, Desiree Bernard; University of Guyana Vice-Chancellor, James Rose; Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Dr Mark Kirton; a representative of the Bar Association and a member of the AG’s chambers and the late Attorney General Attorney General Doodnauth Singh become “superficially attractive” all but a decade later? How have the pervading circumstances of that era changed substantially, as to negative a local law school when our entire quota has been “effectively abandoned” (words attributed to Chairperson of the Counsel of Legal Education, Ms. Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, Chronicle, May 26, 2014) and the entrance examination route no less in doubt because of “space” (according to AG Anil Nandlall, when he met with law students in March).
Fourthly, Senior Counsel submits that the idea of the local law school “would have to be thought through very carefully, however, because if other Caricom territories are not convinced of the soundness of its programme content, they may withdraw the automatic entry to their national Bars presently enjoyed under the aegis of the CLE’s law school.” And easily following, Senior Counsel submits his real position which is “for Guyana to exercise some financial discipline and return the fold of the UW degree at Cavehill by resuming economic cost for its students.”
I humbly submit that if Guyana has the capacity for “financial discipline” it has the capacity to apply the requisite skills with the discipline needed to convince the region of the “soundness of its programme content”.
Also consider Senior Counsel’s posture for “Guyana to press the Caricom Heads to expand the law schools of the region, particularly Hugh Wooding that its graduates would attend.” In this case Guyana would also need to press Caricom Heads also for their “financial discipline” since it is common knowledge that most of the “contributing” countries to the CLE are in default.
Senior Counsel sums up his arguments thus, “If the difficulty is not overcome and the fabric is rent completely asunder into little island enclaves, we shall have failed comprehensively.” I beg to differ. Every law student knows that failure can be instructive if its lesson is gleaned in the correct light. I humbly submit that at this juncture what might be called for is reexamination of the CLE’s mandate; to reinvigorate the institution; it is a time for us to be innovative; and reinterpret the dream of the founding fathers.
Finally, I submit here Trinidad’s position, documented in the ‘Report on the Development of Legal Education and the Practice of Law in the Caribbean Community: Comments of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago’ (199?):
“It was anticipated that the number of places available at the Law Schools must be increased to keep pace with the inevitable growth in demand. The Council was created to ensure that this demand was met.”
“In seeking to restrict entry to the profession…the Council perpetuates the belief that the Council was created to control the number of students entering the legal profession. This is not so. The Council of Legal Education was created “to undertake and discharge general responsibility for the practical professional training of persons seeking to become members of the legal profession”. In seeking to restrict entry to the profession, for whatever reason, the Council is exceeding its mandate. Nowhere in the Agreement is such power conferred upon the Council of Legal Education.”
“The agreement therefore recognizes the fact that the need for law graduates within the Region will never be satisfied by the University of the West Indies alone.
It was the duty of the Council of Legal Education under the Agreement to provide practical professional training for all qualified persons seeking to become members of the legal profession. Instead the Council has taken upon itself the power to prevent qualified law students from obtaining professional training and thus denying the students their inherent right to pursue the career of their choice. Nowhere in the Agreement is such a power conferred upon the Council of Legal Education. Their solution to the problem was not planning to create additional places but instead to restrict the numbers of persons to be admitted to practice as lawyers, thereby denying law students their right to further their professional careers.”
But more than this, I believe firmly the line that concludes the document, that, “Continuing legal education is a matter for individual territories to implement in association with the law societies of their countries.”
If we agree on anything let us agree with the Legal Affairs Committee, a body of CARICOM, as stated in its ‘Recommendations of the Legal Affairs Committee (LAC) at its Fourth Special Meeting, Grenada, 2-4 June 1999, Regarding the Report of the Committee of Experts on the Development of Legal Education and the Practice of Law in the Caribbean Community and Comments of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago thereon’, in relation to the demand for legal education LAC agreed that “these institution are unable to meet the demands for legal education”.
Sherod Avery Duncan

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