Caribbean must dismantle barriers to legal education - AG Basil Williams

Caribbean must dismantle barriers to legal education – AG Basil Williams

Aug 05, 2019 News

By Feona Morrison

Public legal education and information is one means of ensuring greater public confidence in the Caribbean’s legal systems. It also will allow citizens to better understand our legal institutions and how they contribute to societal well-being.

Basil Williams

Karen Tesheira

However, unless the barriers to access legal education are dismantled, the region’s legal institutions stand to suffer.
This is according to the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams (S.C.)
He made these observations last Wednesday when the Canadian Government funded Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT Justice) Project hosted a public lecture to review the recommendations made in its 2018 Report on the Survey of Legal Education in CARICOM Member States.
The event was held at the Marriott Hotel.
DISCRIMINATORY
Williams reminded that President David Granger had called for non-discriminatory admission to regional law schools last September, when Guyana hosted the Meetings of the Executive Committee and Council of Legal Education – a regional institution responsible for the development of competent legal practitioners.
According to Williams, the President noted, “Legal education is essential to establishing a corps of legal professionals to provide legal services and to facilitate access to justice.”
“President Granger called for non-discriminatory admissions to regional law schools, noting that Guyana’s need for a greater number of trained legal practitioners cannot be satisfied by the present quotas imposed on our students by regional law schools,” Williams told the gathering.
He said that the President emphasized the importance of legal education to ensure an adequate number of legal professionals to provide legal services throughout the state; promote access to justice; populate our legal systems with lawyers, jurists and specialized legal practitioners; and prepare future practitioners to preserve the rule of law.
The Attorney General added, “In my own address to the meeting, I stressed the necessity of legal education keeping pace with the evolving legal landscape. I also iterated the concerns about the financial cost of accessing legal education in the region.”
Each year, the top 25 students from the University of Guyana (UG) Law Department gain automatic acceptance to the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) in Trinidad and Tobago to read for their Legal Education Certificate —a prerequisite to practice law in Guyana and the Caribbean Region.
As it is, holders of Law degrees from the University of the West Indies gain automatic acceptance into the three law schools across the region governed by the Council of Legal Education.
Apart from HWLS, these are the Eugene Dupuch Law School in the Bahamas and the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica.
Holders of “non-UWI” law degrees, as well as the remainder from UG’s Law Department that did not make it into the top 25, are required to sit an entrance examination.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Karen Tesheira, IMPACT Justice Consultant and Rapporteur to the Legal Education Survey Team gave a succinct overview of the results and recommendations made in the Legal Education Survey.
Among other things, she explored the current system of admission to the Council of Legal Education’s Law Schools; whether regional governments should continue to fund legal education; whether the role of the Council of Legal Education should change to that of a regulatory, licensing and accreditation body for existing and any other law schools which could be established.
INTEGRAL
Williams nevertheless underscored: “Citizens are integral to the region’s justice systems. Public legal education can help protect our citizens. Public legal education and information are public services which can protect persons who are victims of abuse or vulnerable to such abuse.”
“It can provide them with the know-how on how to apply for protective orders to restrain their abusers. It can empower workers by providing information which can prevent them from being exploited on the job. It can enlighten citizens of their rights so as to avoid arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention.”
The Attorney General believes that public legal education and information strengthens public justice. He said it is more than merely improving legal training within our jurisdictions.
He explained, “It is also concerned about increasing public awareness of the law to protect our citizens.”

A section of the gathering.

UNDERSERVED
In this regard, Williams emphasized that regional governments are encouraged to devote more resources to public legal education and information.
He, however, expressed that unfortunately resources available for such education is limited and that Caribbean justice systems have to compete with other sectors for scarce budgetary resources and, as a result, public legal education and information is often underserved in national budgets.
Notwithstanding this, Williams disclosed that government along with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations have made invaluable interventions, over the years, in order to provide citizens with public legal information in Guyana.
He went on to state that these include a series entitled The Law and You, produced by the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers, which provides empowering information on citizen’s rights and on other legal concerns.
There is also A Household Guide to the Domestic Violence Act, produced by Red Thread; A Guide to the Juvenile Justice Act 2018, produced by the Ministry of Public Security and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Added to these, there is also a handbook on the Sexual Offences Act, produced by Help and Shelter in conjunction with international partners.
The Attorney General said that there is a wide range of other resources presently available to citizens, but greater efforts are needed to ensure their wider dissemination.
Among those present at the forum were Chief Justice Roxanne George; Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack; Justice Bernie Stephenson, Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court; Lilian Chatterjee, High Commissioner of Canada to Guyana and Ambassador to Suriname and Ambassador to CARICOM; Professor Duke Pollard, Former Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice; members of the Magistracy; Ms. Sandra Bart, representing the CARICOM Secretariat; Teni Housty, President of the Guyana Bar Association; Ms. Shellon Boyce, President of the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers and law students.