Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s months-long chal­lenge to the process used to reap­point Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett will now be de­ter­mined by the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), af­ter re­gion­al lead­ers yes­ter­day agreed to seek an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion from the re­gion­al court.

The de­ci­sion, an­nounced dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in St Lu­cia, was wel­comed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts, who said it al­lows both Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cari­com to move for­ward while pre­serv­ing re­gion­al uni­ty.

Read­ing from a pre­pared state­ment yes­ter­day, Cari­com Chair and St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J. Pierre said T&T had main­tained its ob­jec­tion to the process used to reap­point Bar­nett dur­ing the heads of gov­ern­ment re­treat.