Discriminatory!

UTech challenges mandatory test for its students to attend Norman Manley Law School

Tyrone Reid, Senior Staff Reporter

Former president of the Senate, Professor Oswald Harding, has branded as unfair and discriminatory the mandatory test that non-University of the West Indies (UWI) law students must sit to gain access to the Mona-based Norman Manley Law School.

Harding, who is also dean of the University of Technology's (UTech) law faculty, believes the test should be scrapped or everybody be made to write the exam.

"Obviously, it is discriminatory. If you have two institutions in Jamaica, both subsidised by the Government, both [catering to] citizens of Jamaica, and those from one can get into a school without an exam and the others have to write one, that's blatantly discriminatory," said Harding.

He added: "Either they remove the test or everybody writes the exam. We must be on the same footing."

According to Harding, the advent of UTech's law faculty and other online degrees offered to students in Jamaica require that the 'one-law-school' rule be revisited and revised.

"If they cannot accept anymore students because of limitation of space, then the idea should be that somebody else should open a law school."

The respected attorney continued: "I'm not suggesting that it's the policy of the Government or the policy of the Norman Manley school. The fact is that they are restricted under the law."

The Council of Legal Education Act dictates that there can only be one law school in participating territories.

Subsection b of Section 3 of the Council of Legal Education Act, which sets out the functions and powers of the council, invested the ruling body with the autonomy "to establish, equip and maintain law schools, one in Jamaica, one in Trinidad and Tobago and in such other territories as the council may, from time to time, determine, for the purpose of providing postgraduate professional legal training".

withdraw from treaty

But according to Harding, one of the solutions is that Jamaica can withdraw from the treaty. "It's a law in Jamaica but we can withdraw from it. There is no reason why we can't have five law schools in Jamaica if we feel like it," said Harding.

"The Council of Legal Education Act states that each territory can only have one law school. Now, don't confuse that with a faculty. You need entrance to the law school. Their certificate is a two-year course in order to be admitted to the Bar to the practice. You could have an LLB degree or an LLM degree (or) you could have a PhD in law, but it doesn't entitle you to practise law. So you have to get into a law school," explained Harding.

As it relates to admission to law schools in the region, the act says that "every person who holds a University of the West Indies LLB degree shall be eligible for admission to the law schools, and every person who holds a degree of a university or institution which is recognised by the council as being equivalent to the University of the West Indies LLB degree shall, subject to the availability of places and to such conditions (if any) as the council may require, be eligible for admission to the law schools".

When contacted for comment, Professor Stephen Vasciannie, principal of the Norman Manley Law School, deferred to Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, who is chairman of the Council of Legal Education.

Samuels-Brown, who spoke to The Sunday Gleaner from overseas, said the issue was a policy one for the Government to address.

"I have no further take on it. It is a matter for the Government."

However, she said that the council has noticed the boom in the demand for law-school spaces.

"The council is very sensitive to the fact that over the years there has been a much greater demand for spaces than is available," Samuels-Brown told The Sunday Gleaner.

The legal luminary added that the council has done much to expand the capacity of the law schools in Trinidad and Jamaica. She said the yearly intake has increased significantly in the last two years.

Samuels-Brown said while the council will do what it can to increase the number of spaces within the ambit of the treaty, there are dissenting legal voices who have cautioned that the profession cannot accommodate so many people.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com