Caribbean legal education needs comprehensive review-AG
Mr. Anil Nandlall
Mr. Anil Nandlall

AG calls for comprehensive review of legal education in the Caribbean

ATTORNEY GENERAL (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Anil Nandlall has made it clear that unless there is a comprehensive review of legal education in the Caribbean, then the insular establishment of institutions would be regressive to regional integration.

The AG’s comment came on the wings of a statement issued by CARICOM which recorded consensus from regional leaders to urgently review the regional approach to legal education.
Additionally, the Regional Heads of State sought to address the role and function of the Council of Legal Education.

“Unless this process is regionally driven then insularity will step in which may see the establishment of educational institutions outside of a regional structure. Such a development will be as inimical as it will be regressive to regionalism and integrated community we fervently aspire to foster.”- Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall

Head of the University of Guyana Law Department, Mr. Sheldon McDonald had raised this concern recently that the role of the Council for Legal Education (CLE) ought to be as an accreditation body for regional law schools as opposed to an institute of legal education monopoly.
According to the AG, the almost 40-year structure that has seen an increase in the number of academic institutions offering law degrees has not yet addressed the growing need for more legally trained personnel in the region.

President Donald Ramotar
President Donald Ramotar

Unless such a regionally driven process is undertaken, the AG noted, insular steps would be taken by CARICOM member states which would revert the thrust for regional integration. “Such a development will be as inimical as it will be regressive to regionalism and integrated community [which] we fervently aspire to foster,” Nandlall remarked.
High on the agenda, the Minister said, should have been the re-establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to pave the way for the “growth and development of an indigenous West Indian jurisprudence.”
The CARICOM Heads of Government had discussed legal education in the Community following its consideration of the matter of access by Guyanese students to the Hugh Wooding Law School.
In an invited comment, Mr. Nandlall said: “As a member state of the Council for Legal Education, we continued to pay our dues that are owed and payable by member states… [However] several years ago [Guyana] stopped paying the economic costs for our students and therefore our students pay the economic costs themselves.”
Mr. Nandlall accompanied President Donald Ramotar to the 35th CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting held in Antigua earlier this month.
The minister had noted at a symposium held recently at UG that the Guyana’s principled decision to withdraw from paying economic costs could not be the reason why the CLE failed to accept Guyanese students.
Since Guyanese students have paid full costs, they have not left any debts with the Council or with the Hugh Wooding Law School of the University of the West Indies.
The minister said that the Government of Guyana, many years ago, had taken a principled decision to withhold from paying economic costs to the CLE since: “Other countries in the Region who have continued to pay the economic costs for their students have largely been delinquent in the payment of those costs and with the exception of Jamaica and Trinidad, almost every member state of the CLE is indebted to the Council to the tune of millions of US dollars.”
Returning from the meeting of the Regional leaders, President Donald Ramotar disclosed that while law students of the current academic year have been provided for by the CLE “we have to do something from here on because there is a problem with capacity of the Law school in Trinidad.”
The President said: “I think that the University of the West Indies will have to expand their facilities to deal with the demand of the Law students… [Also] the consensus was that we will have to look into expanding the capacity to accommodate more and more students.”
The CARICOM Heads of Government discussed legal education in the Community following its consideration of the matter of access by Guyanese students to the Hugh Wooding Law School.
They welcomed the commitment for accommodation of the top twenty-five Guyanese graduates of the University of Guyana at the Hugh Wooding Law School for the academic year 2014/2015 following discussions between the then Chair of CARICOM and the Chair of the Council of Legal Education.
However, Heads of Government acknowledged that this was a short term solution to the issue which also affected other CARICOM Nationals, in particular Belizean students, who have graduated from the University of Guyana and institutions in the Community other than the University of the West Indies.
Member States expressed commitment to work with the Council of Legal Education on these issues, taking note of the fact that the Council and the system of legal education in the Community was established by an Agreement among Heads of Government in 1972, and amendments would be required to give effect to the findings and recommendations of the review.
The Hugh Wooding Law School opened its doors to its first students in September 1973. Like the Council of Legal Education’s other Law Schools, the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica which was also established in 1973, and the Eugene Dupuch Law School, the third Law School of the Council of Legal Education established in The Bahamas in 1998, it prepares students for admission to practise in the Commonwealth Caribbean territories.
The Hugh Wooding Law School is named after an illustrious jurist of the campus territory Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Hugh Wooding.

(By Derwayne Wills)

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