Dear Editor,
The great Sir Arthur Lewis reminds us that, “…asking questions is the principal business of university people; if we do not ask important questions simply because they are dangerous questions, we cease to be honest and a dishonest scholar is a menace to society.” I submit that in my humble estimation the weight of such a position takes on an even greater nature and quality when one dons the ‘title’ student-at-law.
Since my foray into the letters column on the issue of reforms in legal education locally and regionally I have contemplated this letter which seems even more pertinent now in light of several revelations that have taken on an infamous tenor regarding our Attorney General Anil Nandlall and Kaieteur News and also in the wake of the President’s prorogation of Parliament.
Almost a year ago the Council for Legal Education (CLE) had suspended the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS)-University of Guyana (UG) special arrangement regarding the latter’s top twenty-five law graduates. I have written at some length on this and so will not wade again into these waters; suffice to say that neither the University of Guyana Law Society (UGLS) nor its students of the Department of Law in any significant numbers have articulated any view publicly on the matter.
When the dilemma regarding the 2014 top twenty-five graduates was ‘remedied’ no mention was made of the 2015 or 2016 batches, and even though it seems UG has a new policy of accepting more students in the Department of Law, it is understood that new negotiations must ensue regarding the 2015 batch especially. Law students have thus far said nothing on the issue.
I am advised that as regards the matter concerning our Attorney General there was some discussion among law students canvassing their position on the matter. Alas, there was a sense that those who were public on the matter were already qualified and could hold their own while law students were in the process of doing so. Their silence was therefore intentional. Another line of reasoning noted that when these students become attorneys the focus is then on upward mobility and ‘security of tenure’ – all the more reason not to rock the proverbial boat, which for all intents and purposes seems to be taking on water fast and is in imminent danger of sinking.
Attorney at Law Martin Daly in his recent column in the Trinidad Express, titled ‘Looking across the generations’ perhaps articulates my thoughts with greater economy when he said, “… the pursuit of self-advantage and opportunism at the controlling levels of the society and acceptance of that value system for entry to the top is the natural enemy of independent thought and expression as well as consultation, reform and innovation. This syndrome also produces bitterness, cynicism and ultimately civil disorder, most pronounced among those who cannot get out from under the neglect of good governance.”
I was heartened to see even more recently, according to the Huffington Post, “The Black Law Students Association at Yale Law School has denounced” with “sadness, outrage, and indignation” the failure to indict the former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Part of the group’s statement read: “We are outraged to see that separate and unequal codes of conduct, nightmares we hoped were relegated to our forefathers’ generations, persist today.”
I think on these matters and wonder when the UG law students will speak up.
Yours faithfully,
Sherod Avery Duncan
