Law and medicine were the two professions to which traditionally young Guyanese aspired, and things haven’t changed much, although nowadays more students appear to be attracted to law than to medicine for a variety of reasons. The appeal was both in terms of the status those occupations conferred, and in terms of remuneration, two things which for many perhaps were not unconnected. In former times, of course, the vocational qualifications, at least, for solicitors and barristers (there is no distinction in Guyana now) had to be acquired in England.
However, a new route to entering law for Caribbean students was opened in 1973, with the setting up of the Council of Legal Education (CLE). This made possible the qualifying of lawyers in the Anglophone Caribbean, and the CLE is recognized in our local legislation. It governs both the academic aspect of the profession, viz, the acquisition of a law degree, and the certification necessary to be able to practise law, called the Legal Education Certificate. Successful completion of these two elements enables a graduate to practise law in any common law Caribbean territory.
Initially, the academic portion of the exercise was completed at UWI’s Cave Hill campus in Barbados, but eventually, Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana were permitted to open their campus doors to law students as well. Where the Legal Education Certificate was concerned, however, the original arrangements still stand: there are three law schools sited in Jamaica, Trinidad and The Bahamas where aspiring practitioners obtain their certification. Guyanese students attend the Hugh Wooding Law School in T&T.
There were two problems with the law schools; one had to do with money, and the other with the number of applicants. With the opening of law departments at UWI St Augustine and Mona, as well as at the University of Guyana, the number of students seeking to pursue law degrees grew enormously. Attorney General Basil Williams has been reported as saying the present annual intake at UG, for example, is around 200. Unfortunately for the students, the law schools have not been able to expand sufficiently to keep up with the increase in law graduates, and at the present time Guyana is limited to 25 of the most successful who are accorded automatic entry to Hugh Wooding, anyone else being required to sit an entrance exam. Trinidad, of course, feels that its primary obligation is to its own students.
Needless to say, tertiary institutions of any kind are horrendously expensive to maintain, and law schools are no exception. The situation is not helped by the fact that some of the territories – Guyana in particular – have not been altogether conscientious about meeting their financial obligations to the CLE, which means that the students themselves have to pay the fees unless their governments are prepared to assist. The AG has said that this country stopped contributing to the CLE since 2002, and economic costs, as they are called, for the law school were transferred to the students.
In 2015 the Hugh Wooding announced a 30% increase in tuition fees and changes to the payment scheme whereby Guyanese students had to pay $5.8 million for the two-year programme, where previously they had to pay $4.2 million. In August last year the National Assembly approved $17.9 million to assist the law students at Hugh Wooding, but it still only represented 25% of the economic cost of tuition fees for 50 students. Mr Williams was reported as saying that it was generally accepted that countries could not pay the full contribution, and the students were expected to pay some amount.
The law students have been complaining bitterly over the years, and now the government is proposing to open a local law school. This is an idea which dates back to Dr Cheddi Jagan’s period of office, and AG Williams maintains that permission by the CLE was granted then, although the former AG, Mr Anil Nandlall has expressed doubt that such a permit is still extant. In any case, what Dr Jagan had in mind was a little different from what Mr Williams is recommending.
His proposal envisages a public-private partnership involving the United College of the Caribbean and the Law College of the Americas which will have a 70% shareholding in the venture, and the Government of Guyana which will have 30%. No details have yet been supplied on who these private entities are, and what the nature of their academic standing is, although it has been announced that an MoU has been signed with them.
No one knows either the precise cost involved – the AG said a feasibility study was soon to be done, although later he was reported as saying it could be in the region of US$75 million. The proposed school would cater, the public has been told, to students mostly from Guyana and Jamaica, although other Caricom and Commonwealth nationals would be accepted. Its intake is intended to be 200-400.
The first thing which needs to be said is that the AG had better confirm that the permission which he says was granted in the 1990s for Guyana to have its own law school still holds, and furthermore, if it does, whether it would extend to a school 70% of which would be in private hands. There would be little benefit in a school which was not recognized by the CLE, for the simple reason that anyone who qualified there would not be able to practise anywhere in the Caribbean except Guyana.
If the Council does not recognize the new school, would it then be a viable proposition, since students from outside Guyana would not want to come, and it would have to cater to UG graduates alone? Even their numbers might fall off in such circumstances, since law might lose some of its lustre if it could not carry a young ambitious person beyond the boundaries of the Co-operative Republic. It might be added that although this is a very litigious society, 200 or 100 or even 50 new lawyers annually will not easily find work, and this in itself would diminish the lure of the profession. (This might be a problem even if the CLE did grant recognition.)
If the Council does not recognize the school on academic grounds, then there would be a major difficulty, because any graduate worth his or her salt would not want to go there.
If, in contrast, the Council of Legal Education is prepared to recognize the new school, then it would require all kinds of guarantees, and possibly inspections, to ensure that the institution met the academic standards which obtain in the existing law schools. Added to this, there would be the question of the relationship between the current schools and the new one; would they all be seen as being on the same level and could a Guyanese still opt to attend the Hugh Wooding in preference to the new school? If they could, would Hugh Wooding place a ceiling on the number of Guyanese who could go there? In other words, if the government wants CLE approval, this is not going to happen in a hurry; some considerable negotiation on a range of matters will be involved first.
There is, in addition, the cost factor, since the two private colleges will want to recoup their investment, and in any case, they presumably will not become involved in a project of this kind with the sole view of promoting legal education in Guyana; they will need to make some profit. How cheap would tuition fees be for the students, therefore, as compared to what they pay now in Hugh Wooding? Would this really ease their financial difficulties? What would be a lot easier for them would be the living expenses, although whether that would be a sufficient argument to go the route of a local law school is a very dubious point.
AG Williams really needs to supply the public, not to mention the law students, with a great deal more information on this proposal.
