…new pact signed for 25 spots at Hugh Wooding Law School

By Svetlana Marshall
AFTER years of negotiations, the University of Guyana (UG) was successful in signing a collaborative agreement with the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Council of Legal Education (CLE) paving the way for 25 Guyanese law students to have automatic entry into the Hugh Wooding Law School. The agreement was signed on Saturday during the 48th Meeting of the Council of Legal Education in Antigua and Barbuda, but not without objection from a minority.
Speaking to Guyana Chronicle from Antigua, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams said Guyana secured the support of its CARICOM brothers and sisters, with 20 representatives voting in favour of the provision maintaining the Hugh Wooding Law School as the automatic entry for the 25 Guyanese law students. Six persons had objected to that proposal.
He said initially the draft collaborative agreement spoke to the issue of space and created a sense of uncertainty. “In fact, the provision that went to the council was that Guyana should be entitled to no less than 25 students to any law schools and they had removed the Hugh Wooding Law School and replace it with any of the law schools, but I argued that they couldn’t move from certainty to uncertainty. So that provision was put to the floor and we won it,” the Attorney General explained.
Under the initial proposal, Guyana was hoping to not only gain automatic entry into the Hugh Wooding Law School for Guyanese students, but also non-Guyanese graduates. But the agreement signed on Saturday did not cater for non-Guyanese law graduates. “There was no consensus on any more than 25,” Minister Williams said, when asked about entries for international law students studying in Guyana.
The University of Guyana was represented by its Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Dr. Barbara Reynolds; however, she was not party to the deliberations in the Council which led to the agreement. During the meeting of the council, Guyana was represented by Williams, Chief Justice (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and representatives of the Guyana Bar Association, including its President Gem Sanford-Johnson.
The original agreement among UG, UWI and the CLE had come to an end in 2013. As a result, Guyana had lobbied the CLE through CARICOM for an extension, pending the finalisation of this new agreement. In 2014, the then Chairperson of the Council, Jamaican Queen’s Counsel (QC) Jacqueline Samuels-Brown had raised a number of concerns when approached by CARICOM to give Guyanese law students automatic entry. “By the treaty establishing the Council of Legal Education, UWI’s graduates have automatic entry, bearing in mind, we already have a population at the law school now of over 400, and bearing in mind that the law school was built to accommodate less than 200,” Samuels-Brown was quoted as saying then.
Based on a number of factors, the Council at the time had agreed to continue the arrangement to give the 25 top Guyanese law students automatic entry into the Hugh Wooding Law School, but this time based on the availability of space.
However, prior to that request, the council had denied Guyanese Law students automatic access into the Trinidad law school. The agreement between UG and the Council had expired in November 2012; however, it was extended to 2013 based on a request from the Guyana Government.
However, during the first meeting of the Council in February, 2014 the issue arose, but following a heated debate the majority on the Council voted against Guyana’s request for the extension of the agreement which dates back to 1996. The council on Saturday also elected a new chair – Senior Counsel Reginald Armour of Trinidad and Tobago.