Geisha Kow­lessar

Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to es­tab­lish a Coun­cil of Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion to ad­vo­cate for the recog­ni­tion of law de­grees ob­tained from uni­ver­si­ties out­side of the re­gion for the pur­pose of ad­mis­sion in­to re­gion­al law schools.

Rec­om­men­da­tions al­so are be­ing made to al­low can­di­dates to en­roll part-time to read for law de­grees. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan made the rec­om­men­da­tion while speak­ing at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 16th meet­ing of the Le­gal Af­fairs Com­mit­tee at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain. That, Ram­lo­gan said, would be achieved by amend­ing the Ch­aguara­mas Treaty, signed on Ju­ly 4, 1973, by com­mit­tee mem­bers.

He said: "The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, through the Cave Hill Cam­pus, has been able to ac­com­mo­date LLB hold­ers but there is a quo­ta sys­tem that is very re­strict­ed and no part-time class­es are be­ing of­fered. "That meant that sin­gle moth­ers, pub­lic ser­vants...per­sons who could not af­ford to take a full-time de­grees could not pur­sue the LLB as a ca­reer op­tion." He said due to the ad­vent of the In­ter­net peo­ple were pur­su­ing their law ca­reers via dis­tance-learn­ing pro­grammes, in­clud­ing with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. But it was not pos­si­ble for such peo­ple to ful­fil that am­bi­tion to be­come an at­tor­ney be­cause they were not ac­cept­ed in­to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, he said. He added: "What this means is we have a cadre of peo­ple who have com­plet­ed the LLB, through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and in­deed oth­er recog­nised uni­ver­si­ties, who may not gain ac­cep­tance at the law schools be­cause of the quo­ta sys­tems. "This has re­sult­ed in a scarci­ty of lawyers in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas and the gap con­tin­ues to grow."

The Gov­ern­ment, Ram­lo­gan added, ad­vo­cat­ed the ex­pan­sion of the un­der-grad­u­ate Fac­ul­ty of Law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

He added: "At present, na­tion­als are com­pelled to study over­seas at the Cave Hill Cam­pus for two years to com­plete their un­der-grad­u­ate de­gree.

"Na­tion­als from all mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty vie for lim­it­ed places at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and lim­it­ed re­sources at the Cave Hill Cam­pus for the sec­ond and third years of study.

"It is our view that the ex­pan­sion of the fac­ul­ty here in Trinidad and To­ba­go is es­sen­tial to fa­cil­i­tate less ex­pen­sive, eas­i­er and broad­er ac­cess of the pro­gramme to Caribbean na­tion­als," Ram­lo­gan added.

Prin­ci­ples of the Treaty

1. To achieve sus­tained eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, based on in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness, co-or­di­nat­ed eco­nom­ic and for­eign poli­cies, func­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion and en­hanced trade and eco­nom­ic re­la­tions with third states; and

2. To en­hance the ef­fec­tive­ness of the de­ci­sion-mak­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion process­es of the com­mu­ni­ty.