AKASH SAMA­ROO

Less than two weeks be­fore Cari­com lead­ers con­vene in St Lu­cia, a le­gal opin­ion by UWI law pro­fes­sor Ra­jen­dra Ram­lo­gan has con­clud­ed that there is a sub­stan­tial le­gal ba­sis for chal­leng­ing the va­lid­i­ty of Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.

The 48-page opin­ion, com­plet­ed on June 22, ex­am­ines the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment dur­ing a Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment re­treat in Nevis ear­li­er this year. It ar­gues that a se­ries of pro­ce­dur­al and con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns may have placed the de­ci­sion at odds with the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, the gov­ern­ing in­stru­ment of the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment.