Students who recently graduated from the University of Guyana (UOG) with their Bachelor of Law Degree and are unemployed can look forward to being hired as State Prosecutors if they so desire.
Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall – Photo Credit: (Guyana Chronicle)
This was disclosed by Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, during the handing over ceremony for the Criminal Justice System Programme of the Ministry of Legal Affairs, which was funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Except in Capital Offences tried before a Judge and Jury in the High Court, Nandlall said that invariably, all criminal offences in the Magistrate’s Court are prosecuted by Police ranks who undergo certain limited training in the area of prosecution.
“While very few can doubt that having regard to their limited training, and I dare say, their lack of legal education and in some cases equipped only with secondary education, they have acquitted themselves reasonably well against the most formidable of Defence Counsel.”
At the same time, Nandlall said that no one can dispute that there have been multiple miscarriages of justice because of the appreciable inequality because of Defence Counsel’s superior knowledge and training in the law.
As a result, Nandlall said that the victims of crime, the State and the public interest, suffer decades of grievous injustice. Considering this, Nandlall said it is the State’s duty, though belated, to address this deficiency if true justice is to be achieved in the criminal justice system.
“…I am aware that there are dozens of persons in Guyana, especially young persons, who are possessed of a Bachelor’s of Law Degree but for whatever reason have not proceeded to one of the Law Schools in the Region and are here and are at home in Guyana unemployed.”
With this in mind, the Attorney General said he has begun a process of creating a database of these persons. He added that they would soon be contacted to join a new initiative, which will see a collaboration between the Guyana Police Force and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The collaboration will see the applicants completing a one year accredited prosecutorial training course, after which they will be hired as prosecutors and will join Police prosecutors in the Magistrate’s Court, right across the length and breadth of our country.
In his view, Nandlall opined that this addition would augment the quality of prosecutions in the Magistrates’ Court qualitatively, while at the same time provide a great job and career opportunity for many graduates of law, who are currently unemployed.
The AG stated that this must have a positive impact and must result in significant improvements in the standard of prosecutorial service so that victims of crime can feel confident when they enter the courtroom and be a little satisfied when they leave in the end that justice has been served.
[Extracted and Modified from Guyana Standard]
