Land for law school inadequate- AG says
Attorney General Basil Williams, SC
Attorney General Basil Williams, SC

ATTORNEY GENERAL Basil Williams said the 15 acres of land allocated by the University of Guyana (UG) for the construction of the Joseph Haynes Law School is inadequate and he again stressed that Guyana will go ahead with plans to establish the institution despite an administrative hold up at the level of the Council of Legal Education.

Williams told reporters on Monday at the sidelines of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) assessors training session at the Pegasus Hotel that though UG would have identified the land; the identified plot is not adequate for the law school. “They have shown our valuation person an area contiguous to the forensic laboratory, but that won’t be adequate for a law school. It is right now with them and we are hoping they see the light,” he told reporters.

He assured reporters that Guyana has permission to establish the law school and is currently conducting a feasibility study in this regard. “We have not been refused …they (Council of Legal Education) don’t have an archive…the decision was taken quite clearly and the conclusion is, looking at material they had, permission had to have been granted.”

The Attorney General said all factors are being examined, including the criteria for the establishment of the school under the auspices of the CLE. “Nobody can stop us from building a law school; it is just that we are community-minded,” the Attorney General stated, when asked whether Guyana had been given the clearance to build a law school.

He reminded that Guyana is a founding member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and as such has a right to establish its own law school. Moreover, Williams noted the struggles of Guyanese law students who seek admission to the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad. There are law schools in the Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad “and we want to build a law school here; it is too tough for our students.” Williams assured that efforts are being made to have the feasibility study completed soonest and noted that as soon as possible, their Jamaican counterparts (the University College of the Caribbean (UCC) and the Law College of the Americas (LCA) l) will be informed about the land, and value of the land among other things.

Permission granted
Meanwhile, the Attorney General maintained Guyana’s position that permission was granted for Guyana to establish its own law school. He said the recent assertion that Guyana was never granted permission to establish its own law school by the Council of Legal Education (CLE) was heavily flawed. Earlier this month, Williams told reporters at a press conference that should the Chairman of the CLE, Reginald Armour, S.C. continue to interfere in the matter, it is likely that Guyana would resort to taking the issue to the CARICOM heads. “We don’t have to submit nothing to the CLE until we are ready. Mr. Armour is not in charge of the CLE. Mr. Armour is a servant of the Council including the Council of Ministers who told him that he couldn’t publish the statement that he did, and he had to withdraw it,”

Williams himself early December had announced that a Review Committee of the CLE has agreed that the Council should defer the establishment of new law schools; a move he believes is as a result of the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) intention to sabotage Guyana’s efforts to establish its own law school.

He said Armour of Trinidad and Tobago relied on a report of a Review Committee which included former Chancellor Carl Singh, to say that the CLE never gave permission to Guyana to establish its own Law School. Singh has denied ever being part of the committee. Williams had described Armour’s actions as “strange”, noting that he never afforded Guyana a hearing on the matter. Former Attorney General Anil Nandlall had contended that Guyana never received permission to establish a law school.

Williams said it was at Nandlall’s behest that Armour placed the matter on the CLE’s agenda. “We are saying that no international organisation is driven by the opposition and we have an e-mail sent from him to Nandlall assuring him that he will put the item on the agenda without consulting me, the sitting Attorney General for Guyana,” Williams stated.

The CLE committee has to, in the future, engage with Guyana’s committee which comprises the Chancellor of the Judiciary, Chief Justice, Retired Justices Duke Pollard, Claudette Singh and Rudolph James, Professor Harold Lutchman, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of UG and the Registrar.

The APNU+AFC coalition government in January 2017, had announced that the project for establishment of the JOF Haynes Law School of the Americas was launched. The project comes after some two decades of lobbying for an alternative to the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago and the Eugene Dupuch Law School in The Bahamas.

The JOF Haynes Law School is being established through a Public-Private Partnership between the Government of Guyana, the Law School of the Americas (LCA) and the University College of the Caribbean (UCC) and will add to the existing options available to holders of a Bachelor of Laws (LLB), and who intend to pursue their Legal Education Certificate (LEC).

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