Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona will not be in the coun­try when his suc­ces­sor is elect­ed by the Elec­toral Col­lege on Jan­u­ary 19.

Car­mona has been in­vit­ed by ICC pres­i­dent Judge Sil­via Fer­nan­dez de Guer­men­di to the court’s per­ma­nent premis­es in the Hague, Nether­lands, to ad­dress its in­au­gur­al Cer­e­mo­ny for the Open­ing of the Ju­di­cial Year 2018 on Jan­u­ary 18.

In his in­vi­ta­tion, the ICC pres­i­dent told Car­mona his par­tic­i­pa­tion “would be of im­mense im­por­tance for the suc­cess of what I hope to be­come an an­nu­al tra­di­tion un­der­lin­ing the solemn, ju­di­cial na­ture of our in­sti­tu­tion.”

He said, “Con­sid­er­ing your il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer as a dis­tin­guished le­gal ex­pert, a for­mer judge of the court, and Head of State of the coun­try that put in mo­tion the process that led to the court’s es­tab­lish­ment, I can­not think of any­one more suit­able to ad­dress this first cer­e­mo­ny of its kind, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing your rep­u­ta­tion as an out­stand­ing pub­lic speak­er.”

It was now de­ceased pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son, who in 1989 re­vived the idea of es­tab­lish­ing the ICC when he ad­dressed the UN.

Pres­i­dent’s House con­firmed that Pres­i­dent Car­mona has ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend and de­liv­er the ad­dress and will leave late next week for Hague. By that time the nom­i­nee or nom­i­nees for Pres­i­dent would have been sub­mit­ted to House speak­er Bridgid An­nisette George.

Pres­i­dent’s House said the ICC will cov­er his trav­el and ho­tel ex­pens­es.

When Car­mona was elect­ed Pres­i­dent the then sit­ting Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards was out of the coun­try on va­ca­tion. Car­mona was the on­ly nom­i­nee for the post and his elec­tion was sup­port­ed by the then Op­po­si­tion PNM.