Guyana closer in making local CLE Law School reality

Guyana’s Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, last week presented a fresh case to the Council of Legal Education (CLE) of the West Indies coming a few years after a failed attempt by the former APNU+AFC Government to get approval for a law school to be established here.

Nandlall in a press release on Sunday, said the CLE has considered the request for the home-based law school and had immediately penned a letter to the Guyana Government, through his office, informing it of the consideration.

It was noted that in government’s proposal, the law school would be a council’s institution, managed and administered by the CLE.

As such, the Guyana Government will provide the land and buildings as set out in the decision established by the council.

It was disclosed that Government was also informed about the criteria and other requirements that must be satisfied for the establishment of Guyana’s first law school.

It was revealed that for nearly three decades Guyana has been trying to establish a law school within its jurisdiction.

Further, in 2017, the then APNU/AFC Attorney General, Basil Williams, SC, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the University College of the Caribbean (UCC) and Law College of the Americas (LCA) for the establishment of a law school in Guyana.

However, this arrangement did not find favour with the CLE and was outrightly rejected since the CLE is the only lawful authority for the administering of legal professional education in the Caribbean region and the MOU was not reflective of CLE’s permission.

As such, an approval for Guyana would make it the fourth institution to be operated by the Council of Legal Education within CARICOM.

The CLE operates three other law schools within the region: the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad – both established in 1973 – and the Eugene Dupuch Law School in the Bahamas which was established in 1998.

It was disclosed that the CLE was created by a Treaty Agreement signed in 1971 by Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the University of the West Indies, and the University of Guyana.

However, Guyana’s case was supported by the Yonette Cummings-Edwards, OR, Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) who represented the judiciary and Attorneys-at-Law, Teni Housty and Kamal Ramkarran, both of whom represented the Guyana Bar Association.

It was revealed that this initiative merges into the government’s commitment to promote Guyana as an attractive offshore education destination and fulfil its manifesto promise of training Guyanese at every level. This policy will create a skilled workforce repository that will chart the future direction of the country’s development trajectory.

Additionally, Guyana’s proposed law school is expected to attract students from across the region and further afield and will ease the overcapacity which currently exists at the Hugh Wooding and Normal Manley Law Schools.