Dear Editor,
Now the dust from the UG-Hugh Wooding Law School sandstorm has temporarily settled, it behooves me as a quondam participant in the recurrent imbroglio to set the record straight based on historical reflections. Regional bodies have once again begun to venture into flights of fanciful excursions, calculated to deflect the enormity of their failure to engage in meaningful pursuit of the esprit de corps of the founding fathers of Caricom. The recent law school debacle is not without its precedent. The WICB fiasco loomed large, and my position on this was made with pristine clarity in a letter to the press. Dr Ralph Gonsalves is no summer-time soldier. As a true socialist, he stood by the PPP in its winter, in and out of government.
Faced with a not dissimilar quandary in September 1996, the final year LLB graduands petitioned the late President of Guyana, Dr Cheddi B Jagan, to intervene on their behalf. They were invited to cabinet and their grief was heart-rending. After they had departed, I recall him leaving the cabinet room during the discussion which ensued and, shortly thereafter, on his return, he announced that he had called the then Chairman of Caricom Heads of Government, the late Lester Bird Sr, then Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, whom he persuaded to raise the issue with Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) and the Council of Legal Education (CLE). As the acting Attorney-General, vice the incumbent who was recuperating from cardiac surgery, the task was mine to navigate between the Scylla of uncertainty and the Charybdis of success to ensure that the initiative of the President was rewarded. In conjunction with this political intervention the affected aspiring law graduands commenced picketing exercises outside of Caricom HQ, then located in the Bank of Guyana Building. Some even encamped literally on the doorsteps of HWLS in T&T!
After cabinet was concluded, the President gave me some instructions in the privacy of the President’s Office, from which I gleaned at first hand his deep concern for all Guyanese, since the most vocal students were either members of the then opposition parties or their children. The incumbent Chairman of the Council of Legal Education was Mr Ashton Chase, SC and, having consulted with him, I prepared a brief for submission to a specially convened meeting of the Council, piggybacking on a scheduled meeting of the Legal Affairs Committee in St Kitts and Nevis in September 1996. This opportunity to reconsider, and with the intention to eventually reverse, the decision of the Hugh Wooding Law School was meticulously contrived by the ingenuity of President Jagan and his good friend, Prime Minister Lester Bird (Sounds familiar? Fast track to 2014!) and at the insistence of the CLE, Guyana was required to bear the cost of the expenditure for the extra day expected to be spent.
The major issue in 1996 was, however, the challenge to the quality of the UG degree, allegedly on the basis that HWLS and the Dean of the Law Faculty at Cave Hill, had been concerned with the integrity of the programme of tuition, library facilities, and quality controls in place to ensure the exam results were untainted by any indicia of unfairness, having regard to a previous experience, since by 1996 the entire degree programme was provided at the University of Guyana, without the need to attend the Law Faculty at Cave Hill (UWI) in Barbados as was previously required.
In the brief to the members of the CLE, it was my submission that there were 25 graduands from UG whose ad misericordia plea needed to be addressed in a timely manner and Guyana, being an executive member, was prepared to consider and implement all measures to ensure that the CLE and the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill could be satisfied about their then misgivings as outlined above.
At the meeting Guyana’s case was re-iterated and, following a debate, a vote was taken by a show of hands. The result was 9 for and 7 against. I vividly recall the consternation on the face of one of the major antagonists and this did not escape the perceptive eye of Mr Chase, who promptly declared the meeting closed! This was reminiscent of Sir Frank Worrell’s late-cut off Laker, deftly steering the ball out of the gloves of the wicketkeeper, for four. At this stage, I expressed my deep sense of gratitude to all my colleagues for their support and caught the afternoon flight home. Out of deference for the protocol inhering in a matter of such sensitive regional interest they would remain publicly unidentified, but Guyana will forever remember their excessive kindness. 1996 was the watershed year for the current quota of law students to be granted automatic entry to HWLS. Prime Minister Lester Bird Sr, President C Jagan and Mr A Chase will forever be remembered for making the impossible, possible. The relief of the Guyanese law graduands was evident and the top 25 entrants to the HWLS were all successful in the two-year programme.
On a personal note, I wish to share with you the meeting with Cde Cheddi a few days after on the tarmac of the Timehri Airport as he deplaned from a trip to Italy. With his usual inimitable smile he shook my extended hand and, in congratulating me, whispered, “We have a lot of work to do.”
Yours faithfully,
Charles R Ramson, SC
