By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News |
TURKEYEN, GREATER GEORGETOWN — In a transformative milestone for legal education and the regional jurisprudence system, the Government of Guyana and the Council of Legal Education (CLE) on Wednesday officially turned the sod for the construction of Guyana’s first-ever law school, establishing the fourth such institution under the Commonwealth Caribbean’s regional framework.
Situated on an expansive eight-acre plot at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus, the project fulfills a strategic vision pursued for over three decades, fundamentally ending the severe annual placement caps that have constrained aspiring Guyanese attorneys-at-law for generations.
Overcoming the 25-Seat Quota at Hugh Wooding
For decades, Guyanese Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) graduates from the University of Guyana faced an intense bottleneck due to a rigid regional arrangement restricting automatic entry to just 25 students per year at the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago:
- Regional Capacity Deficit: Both Hugh Wooding Law School and the Norman Manley Law School (NMLS) in Jamaica have faced chronic space constraints, turning away qualified graduates annually from across CARICOM.
- Unrestricted Enrollment for Guyana: The new institution will remove the restrictive 25-seat cap, offering eligible Guyanese graduates direct, open access to complete their Legal Education Certificate (LEC) without leaving the country.
- Pan-Caribbean Reach: While hosted on Guyanese soil, the institution operates under the treaty-level auspices of the Council of Legal Education, catering to students from across the wider Caribbean Community.
“The law schools of the Caribbean, particularly Hugh Wooding and Norman Manley, have been turning away students, and it is against that backdrop that this law school emerges,” stated Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC. “It is not merely a Guyanese institute; while it will be located in Guyana, it is an institution of regional legal education serving the entire Caribbean.”
Two Decades of CLE Negotiations Realized
The sod-turning ceremony coincided with Guyana hosting the 57th Annual General Meeting of the Council of Legal Education, bringing together chief justices, attorneys general, bar association presidents, and legal scholars from across the Commonwealth Caribbean.
Addressing the gathering, Chairman of the Council of Legal Education Liesel Weekes emphasized that Wednesday’s groundbreaking represents the culmination of more than twenty years of diplomatic and administrative work:
- Historical Momentum: The formal proposal to construct a law school in Guyana was first tabled at a CLE statutory meeting in 2005.
- Milestone Execution: Successive reviews, feasibility studies, and bilateral agreements between the Government of Guyana and the Council paved the way for final regulatory sanction and architectural design approval.
“The idea for the establishment of a law school in Guyana was first tabled at a meeting of the Council of Legal Education in 2005,” CLE Chairman Liesel Weekes noted. “While it had its momentum… decisions were made which systematically led us to this point today.”
Upon completion, the Turkeyen campus will join Hugh Wooding, Norman Manley, and the Eugene Dupuch Law School in The Bahamas as an accredited center of excellence, significantly reducing the financial burden of room, board, and overseas tuition for Guyanese students while elevating Guyana’s footprint in regional jurisprudence.
