PM Persad-Bissessar welcomes Caricom decision on CCJ referral

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has wel­comed a de­ci­sion by Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Heads of Gov­ern­ment to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go's pro­pos­al to re­fer is­sues sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment of the Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice for an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion.

In a me­dia state­ment is­sued to­day, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the de­ci­sion fol­lowed dis­cus­sions at the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment re­treat on Ju­ly 6, where she main­tained Trinidad and To­ba­go's ob­jec­tions to the process used in the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al's reap­point­ment.

The PM said Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­posed that the mat­ter be re­ferred to the CCJ un­der Ar­ti­cle 212 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, which al­lows Cari­com to seek the court's guid­ance on ques­tions con­cern­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of treaty pro­vi­sions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Heads of Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed and ap­proved the pro­pos­al.

"I wish to thank my fel­low Col­league Heads for sup­port­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's pro­pos­als which were viewed as con­sis­tent with Cari­com's com­mit­ment to the high­est stan­dards of good gov­er­nance and in­sti­tu­tion­al im­prove­ment; prin­ci­ples which I have al­ways cham­pi­oned as nec­es­sary for the fu­ture of CARI­COM," she said.

She al­so thanked Cari­com Chair­man Philip J. Pierre for fa­cil­i­tat­ing con­sen­sus among re­gion­al lead­ers.

PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the out­come would al­low the re­gion to move for­ward in uni­ty and ad­vance the well-be­ing of the peo­ple of Cari­com.