T&T wants Caricom SG reappointment sent to CCJ

Trinidad and To­ba­go says its ob­jec­tion to the reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al is “nei­ther per­son­al nor po­lit­i­cal”.

In a 22-page let­ter to re­gion­al lead­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Port-of-Spain’s po­si­tion “is not di­rect­ed to­wards any in­di­vid­ual” but rather con­cerns “the le­gal­i­ty of the process adopt­ed, the in­tegri­ty of our in­sti­tu­tions and the faith­ful ob­ser­vance of the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work es­tab­lished by the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas”.

She said her ad­min­is­tra­tion “does not ac­cept the process by which the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al was pur­port­ed­ly reap­point­ed and, con­se­quent­ly, is un­able to recog­nise the va­lid­i­ty of the pur­port­ed sec­ond term of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al”.

“I wish to be very clear: our po­si­tion is not held to cre­ate di­vi­sion with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty, but to pre­serve the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der up­on which the le­git­i­ma­cy and cred­i­bil­i­ty of Cari­com ul­ti­mate­ly de­pend.

“Re­gion­al uni­ty can­not rest up­on ex­pe­di­en­cy and ir­reg­u­lar prac­tices mas­querad­ing as prece­dent. It must rest up­on ad­her­ence to the rules which every Mem­ber State has freely ac­cept­ed and un­der­tak­en to up­hold,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote in the let­ter, a copy of which has been ob­tained by the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is al­so urg­ing re­gion­al lead­ers to seek an opin­ion from the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) on the is­sue and wants Bar­nett to be en­gaged on a month-to-month ba­sis un­til there is a de­ter­mi­na­tion by the court.

“Such an in­ter­im ex­ten­sion should be ex­press­ly stat­ed to be with­out prej­u­dice to the le­gal rights or po­si­tions of any Mem­ber State, and should not be con­strued as af­firm­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the im­pugned reap­point­ment process.

“Pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ad­vi­so­ry pro­ceed­ings: (a) the in­cum­bent Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al shall ful­ly re­cuse her­self from the ex­er­cise of any au­thor­i­ty what­so­ev­er or from tak­ing any de­ci­sion, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, re­gard­ing the said ad­vi­so­ry pro­ceed­ings. Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for such ac­tion shall be vest­ed en­tire­ly in the Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al or some oth­er in­de­pen­dent per­son or body.

“The Gen­er­al Coun­sel shall re­cuse her­self from the mat­ter of the ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion in light of her pri­ma­ry role as an ad­vis­er to the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, who is the sub­ject of the pro­posed ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion.”

In ad­di­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pro­posed ques­tions of in­ter­pre­ta­tion aris­ing un­der the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas should be ur­gent­ly re­ferred to the CCJ for an ex­pe­dit­ed ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion pur­suant to Ar­ti­cle 212 of the treaty.

“Giv­en the con­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance of the is­sues and their im­pli­ca­tions for the gov­er­nance of the Com­mu­ni­ty, the Court should be re­quest­ed to hear and de­ter­mine the ref­er­ence on an ur­gent ba­sis,” she wrote.

The con­tents of the let­ter have be­come a ma­jor talk­ing point for lead­ers who went in­to re­treat on the first work­ing day of their four-day sum­mit, which is be­ing chaired by St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J. Pierre.

Bar­nett, the first woman to be ap­point­ed Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, as­sumed of­fice on Au­gust 15, 2021. Her reap­point­ment was an­nounced dur­ing the lead­ers’ sum­mit in St Kitts and Nevis in Feb­ru­ary this year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 51st Cari­com Sum­mit on Sun­day night af­ter Bar­nett had de­liv­ered her re­marks. St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew, who spoke af­ter­wards, praised Bar­nett for her stew­ard­ship of the Guyana-based Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at and the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment as a whole.

“You have un­der­stood the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing the im­par­tial­i­ty of the Sec­re­tari­at while faith­ful­ly im­ple­ment­ing the de­ci­sions of Heads of Gov­ern­ment,” Drew said, adding that “that bal­ance has strength­ened this Com­mu­ni­ty, and for this I of­fer, on be­half of all of us, our sin­cer­est grat­i­tude”.

In her Ju­ly 3, 2026 let­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her ad­min­is­tra­tion had “set out our pro­pos­als for a fi­nal and con­clu­sive de­ter­mi­na­tion of the is­sues aris­ing there­from by the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice by way of an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion, as well as pro­pos­als for in­ter­im mea­sures”.

She not­ed that Ar­ti­cle 24 of the Re­vised Treaty “ex­press­ly gives the pow­er to ap­point and reap­point the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al to the Con­fer­ence, not to a Re­treat, cau­cus or in­for­mal gath­er­ing of Heads of Gov­ern­ment”.

“While a Re­treat may law­ful­ly fa­cil­i­tate con­fi­den­tial dis­cus­sion, it can­not re­place the con­sti­tu­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion des­ig­nat­ed by the Re­vised Treaty to ex­er­cise the pow­er of ap­point­ment.”

She al­so wrote that “the Rules of Pro­ce­dure reg­u­late the man­ner in which the Con­fer­ence con­ducts its de­lib­er­a­tions, but do not al­ter the in­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty es­tab­lished by the Re­vised Treaty”.

“Ac­cord­ing­ly, where the de­ci­sion it­self was tak­en at the Heads-on­ly Re­treat rather than by the Con­fer­ence act­ing in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cles 11 and 24 of the Re­vised Treaty, the reap­point­ment was made by a body lack­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al com­pe­tence to ex­er­cise that pow­er and was there­fore in­con­sis­tent with the Re­vised Treaty.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther ar­gued that the Heads of Gov­ern­ment Re­treat was not a meet­ing that legal­ly con­sti­tut­ed a Con­fer­ence “and/or in­deed a cau­cus” for the pur­pos­es of ex­er­cis­ing the Ar­ti­cle 24(1) pow­er to reap­point the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.

She said “it is clear that the Re­treat of Heads was seen as some­thing sep­a­rate and apart from the ple­nary ses­sion of the Con­fer­ence or a cau­cus un­der Rule 19(3) of the Rules of Pro­ce­dure for Meet­ings of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com”.

“The pow­ers con­ferred by a con­sti­tu­tive treaty up­on an in­sti­tu­tion­al or­gan must or­di­nar­i­ly be ex­er­cised in the man­ner pre­scribed by the treaty. Cari­co­mor­gans pos­sess on­ly those pow­ers con­ferred by the Re­vised Treaty and must ex­er­cise them con­sis­tent­ly with its in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work.

“Where a treaty cre­ates an or­gan and spec­i­fies how that or­gan is com­posed and how it acts, com­pli­ance with those re­quire­ments is or­di­nar­i­ly a con­di­tion of va­lid­i­ty rather than ad­min­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience. Sub­stance pre­vails over nomen­cla­ture. A body can­not avoid treaty oblig­a­tions mere­ly by chang­ing la­bels. Equal­ly, a gath­er­ing can­not ac­quire treaty pow­ers mere­ly be­cause par­tic­i­pants over­lap with those who or­di­nar­i­ly con­sti­tute the treaty or­gan.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that, sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the com­mu­niqué is­sued fol­low­ing the meet­ing “con­tained no ref­er­ence what­so­ev­er to the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al un­der that agen­da item”.

She said the com­mu­niqué is­sued on March 1, 2026, not­ed on­ly that lead­ers had agreed to es­tab­lish a spe­cial com­mit­tee com­pris­ing the lead­ers of Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Guyana and Ja­maica to re­view the gov­er­nance and fi­nanc­ing of Com­mu­ni­ty in­sti­tu­tions.

“That omis­sion de­prived Mem­ber States of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare for de­lib­er­a­tion up­on a mat­ter af­fect­ing one of the high­est con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fices with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty. Any sug­ges­tion that past prac­tice dis­pens­es with the need to iden­ti­fy such an im­por­tant con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion ex­press­ly on the agen­da can­not be rec­on­ciled with the prin­ci­ples of open­ness, le­gal­i­ty and in­formed par­tic­i­pa­tion which un­der­pin the Re­vised Treaty.

“Fur­ther, wrong past prac­tice can­not be used to val­i­date present wrong prac­tice – two wrongs do not make a right.”

The let­ter notes that Ar­ti­cle 24 es­tab­lish­es a manda­to­ry con­sti­tu­tion­al se­quence where­by the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil first makes a rec­om­men­da­tion be­fore the Con­fer­ence may ap­point or reap­point a Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.

“No rec­om­men­da­tion was sought or ob­tained from the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil be­fore the pur­port­ed reap­point­ment. This re­quire­ment is nei­ther pro­ce­dur­al nor op­tion­al. It forms an es­sen­tial con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guard in­tend­ed to en­sure that the Con­fer­ence ex­er­cis­es its ap­point­ing au­thor­i­ty on­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing the in­sti­tu­tion­al ad­vice con­tem­plat­ed by the Re­vised Treaty.”

Source: CMC