UG law students entry to Hugh Wooding in limbo

By Derwayne Wills, June 27, 2015, Source

AS University of Guyana (UG) law students complete their final examinations for this academic year with hopes of continuing their legal education at the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) in Trinidad, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams is unsure if the arrangement for automatic entry of 25 Guyanese students to the HWLS will continue in 2015.

Williams told the National Assembly on Friday that he had received a correspondence from the Council for Legal Education (CLE) on June 24 regarding the status of the agreement for the automatic entry of 25 Guyanese law students based on their Grade Point Average (GPA).

The Attorney General (AG) has inherited the issue from his predecessors in the 23-year People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government. He cited the unavailability of documents in the Attorney General’s Chambers as the reason he wrote to the CLE, a body that oversees the operations of law schools in the English-speaking Caribbean.

“I have been informed,” Williams said in his address, “that there is a negotiation going on in relation to the collaborative agreement between the University of the West Indies (UWI), University of Guyana (UG), and the Council for Legal Education (CLE), but they are claiming that a new proposal put up by the University of Guyana is stalling the negotiations.”

The decision that Williams referred to, according to Williams’s predecessor, Anil Nandlall, included a number of provisions among the entities.

Nandlall, while challenging the current AG’s comprehension of the issues, said the first arrangement was for the UG LL.B (Bachelor of Laws) programme to be supervised and examination papers to be second-marked by the University of the West Indies, and finally for Guyana’s top 25 law students to enjoy automatic entry into the Hugh Wooding Law School.

“That agreement,” Nandlall continued, “expired in 2012, and every year thereafter, I managed to persuade the three parties [UG, UWI and CLE] to continue that agreement on a year-to-year basis until a new agreement can be worked out between the parties.”

Nandlall’s advice to his successor is to “do as I did, and ensure that the arrangements continue until those negotiations are concluded.” The former Attorney General further sought to clarify that he was unsure of what files were being requested, since “the decisions are made at the CLE meetings and it is at that forum that he is expected to canvas for the continuation of those arrangements.”

When asked about long-term solutions to the impasse that has long caused final-year law students to hold their breath, Nandlall said: “It lies in a decision already made both at the level of the heads of Government of the Caribbean, and the Council for Legal Education to conduct a comprehensive overhaul of legal education in the Caribbean.”

That comprehensive overhaul “includes a review of the role of Council, a review of the need for legal education in the Region, the establishment of more law schools [and] review of the syllabus of legal education in the Caribbean, among other things,” Nandlall added.

He said CARICOM Heads of Government decided last year “to finance this process.” “In fact,” Nandlall continued, “I am aware that persons were working on that review process.”

Meanwhile, Nandlall gave the assurance that he had “already extracted an undertaking from the Chairman of the Council for Legal Education, and the principal of the law school for the arrangement to continue for the year 2015.”

The new academic year at the HWLS begins in two months and Attorney General Basil Williams gave his assurance to the National Assembly that he will follow up with the University of Guyana administration, since the matter is “of utmost urgency.”

By Derwayne Wills