Court: Act does not discriminate against non-nationals

THE COURT of Appeal has ruled that provisions of the Legal Profession Act (LPA) which allows TT law students an alternative avenue to enter the profession is not unconstitutional or discriminatory to non-nationals.

In a decision on Friday, Justices of Appeal Justices of Appeal Nolan Bereaux, Judith Jones and Andre des Vignes allowed the appeal by the State which challenged the ruling of Justice Vasheist Kokaram who, in July 2019, deemed section 15(1A) of the LPA unconstitutional in that it discriminated against non-nationals who want to practise law locally.

Kokaram was asked by Grenada-born St Lucian prospective attorney Dianne Jhamilly Hadeed to declare the section unconstitutional on the basis that the law was discriminatory and placed an additional burden on a non-national to seek admission to the Hugh Wooding Law School, write an entrance examination, or wait at least additional years to be called to the bar in England and then seek to get their certificate of fitness before being admitted to the local Bar.

The State appealed the judge’s ruling to seek clarity on the law. Bereaux, who read out a summary of the court’s decision, said section 15(1A) was not unconstitutional as it was not discriminatory. He said the constitution must be given wide interpretation and while section 15(1A) of the LPA treats nationals and non-nationals differently, it doesn’t mean that non-nationals are discriminated against.

In any event, he said, there was rational justification for treating nationals differently, among them the limited number of spaces at the HWLC and the specific demands for legal education in TT.

Bereaux said Parliament was entitled, as policy, to enact legislation to entitle locals to practise in TT.

He added that even if the proportionality test was deployed, the legitimate aim of the Parliament was rational and proportionate. The effect of Kokaram’s ruling was that no one, including TT nationals, could apply under section 15(1) of the LPA to be admitted to practise in TT without a legal education certificate from the HWLS until the law was amended by Parliament or the ruling was successfully appealed.

Section 15(1A) of the LPA allowed TT law students an alternative avenue to enter the profession, without the requirement of obtaining a legal education certificate from the HWLS if they underwent their six-month in-service training under a practising attorney, once they had the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) from London.

In arguments at the appeal, the Law Association, which was an interested party, proposed a five-year suspension of any order of the court if it opted to strike down section 15(1A) or modify it.

Bereaux on Friday said there was no need to do so. The Law Association was represented by Alvin Fitzpatrick, SC, while Rishi Dass also appeared for the Attorney General.

While the judges made no orders for Hadeed to pay costs of the appeal, she will have to pay the costs of an application by the AG to have Kokaram’s orders suspended. This was granted by Justice of Appeal Prakash Moosai.