Latest update April 7th, 2025 12:08 AM
Guyana to finally get law school
– CLE approves Govt. proposal to provide land, building
Kaieteur News – Guyana will finally get its own law school now that the Council of Legal Education (CLE) has accepted a proposal by Guyana for the school to be managed by the Council, but this country will provide the building and the land.
Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC made the announcement on Sunday. He said the decision to give Guyana the clearance was taken last week during a meeting of local representatives and members of the Council in Barbados. The Attorney General was accompanied by Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag.), Yonnette Cummings-Edwards who represented the Judiciary and Attorneys-at-Law, Mr. Teni Housty and Kamal Ramkarran who represented the Guyana Bar Association, when he met with officials of the CLE in Bridgetown Barbados, last week and presented a case for the establishment of a Council’s law school in Guyana.
Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, SC
In his presentation, the Attorney General informed the Council that unlike a proposal made by his predecessor, Basil Williams, SC, which the Council rejected, the Government of Guyana is proposing that the law school be a Council’s institution to be managed and administered by the CLE but that the Government of Guyana will provide the land and buildings based upon criteria and specifications set by the Council.
According to Nandlall, the request was favourably considered, and the Council made a decision to write the Government of Guyana shortly, informing of the decision and setting out the criteria and other requirements which the Government will have to satisfy. He said the initiative merges into the Government of Guyana’s commitment to promote Guyana as an attractive offshore education destination. The proposed Law School is expected to attract students from across the Region and farther afield and will ease the overloading which currently obtains, in particular, at Hugh Wooding and Norman Manley Law Schools.
Guyana‘s previous attempt to establish a law school proved unsuccessful. The proposal then was made by former Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, under the A Partnership For National Unity +Alliance For Change administration, Basil Williams.
Williams had claimed, while in office, that Guyana had received approval for a local law school since the early 2000s under the PPP government. In a statement back in 2018 Williams had announced that his Government was seeking to establish the law school after the PPP Government had failed to do so. “…the APNU+AFC Government is just doing what the PPP failed to do; following through with a decision made long now.” The former AG had argued also against the hardship faced by local law students and had called out the Government for not moving quickly given the issues Guyanese students face.
Later Williams would say that despite the earlier confirmation for the law school, the CLE had reneged saying that no permission was ever given for the local establishment. The former AG in 2017 had signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on behalf of the then Government, with the University College of the Caribbean (UCC) and the Law College of the Americas (LAC) for the construction of a local law school; JOF Haynes Law School. It was said that the establishment of the school would have addressed the problems of Guyanese students, who needed to travel abroad to study law. The investment was said to be around US$75m.
Guyana currently has an arrangement with the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad where 25 local students are guaranteed entrance to the school every year.
The Council of Legal Education of the West Indies is the lawful authority for the administering of legal professional education in the Caribbean Region. The Council does so through its law schools, the Hugh Wooding Law School, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Norman Manley Law School, Kingston, Jamaica, and Eugene Dupuch Law School, Nassau, Bahamas.
This arrangement is governed by a Treaty which is incorporated by legislation in all member States. Under this arrangement, holders of a recognized Bachelor of Laws degree are admitted to these law schools and upon the satisfactory completion of a course of study, are issued with a Legal Education Certificate (LEC) which qualifies them to practise before the Courts of Law in member States. For nearly three decades Guyana has been trying to establish a law school within its jurisdiction.
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