Ramsamooj wins CCJ challenge over Suriname detention

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and con­sul­tant Derek Ram­samooj has scored a ma­jor le­gal vic­to­ry in his land­mark case over be­ing de­nied ac­cess to an at­tor­ney while de­tained in Suri­name over al­le­ga­tions of fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment, this af­ter­noon, Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) Pres­i­dent Win­ston An­der­son and Jus­tices Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee, Denys Bar­row, Pe­ter Ja­madar, and Chan­tal Onon­ai­wu up­held Ram­samooj's law­suit over the le­gal­i­ty of the con­di­tions of his de­ten­tion.

Sum­maris­ing the pan­el's de­ci­sion, Jus­tice An­der­son said that Ram­samooj's de­ten­tion un­der a "beperk­ing or­der" was un­law­ful as it breached his right to free­dom of move­ment as a Cari­com na­tion­al un­der the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas (RTC).

Jus­tice An­der­son al­so said that an al­leged con­fes­sion, which Suri­name of­fi­cials claimed that Ram­samooj gave in Dutch while de­tained, was un­law­ful.

How­ev­er, he stat­ed that the find­ing in re­la­tion to the con­fes­sion would not in­val­i­date pend­ing crim­i­nal charges against Ram­samooj as Suri­namese au­thor­i­ties may still re­ly on ev­i­dence which they gath­ered out­side the pe­ri­od of his de­ten­tion.

The pan­el or­dered US$30,000 in non-pe­cu­niary dam­ages for Ram­samooj as he proved that his de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health, in­clud­ing a stroke he suf­fered in Suri­name and eye­sight is­sues were par­tial­ly due to his un­law­ful de­ten­tion with­out ac­cess to his fam­i­ly and at­tor­neys.

Ram­samooj, 62, was chal­leng­ing his 2020 de­ten­tion in Suri­name.

Ram­samooj was in the coun­try's cap­i­tal Para­mari­bo and was held by po­lice as he was about to re­turn to T&T.

He was held on the "beperk­ing or­der" un­der which he was de­tained and de­nied ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion while he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed over pay­ments he al­leged­ly re­ceived from the Suri­namese Post Sav­ings Bank un­der the tenure of the for­mer gov­ern­ment.

While the or­der was even­tu­al­ly lift­ed, Ram­samooj was charged with fraud, forgery and mon­ey laun­der­ing and was blocked from leav­ing the coun­try.

He was even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to leave the coun­try in Sep­tem­ber 2022 af­ter a judge up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion based on his med­ical con­di­tions.

In the law­suit, Ram­samooj's lawyers led by Se­nior Coun­sel Justin Phelps con­tend­ed that the "beperk­ing or­der" was un­law­ful as it is in­con­sis­tent with Cari­com treaties and poli­cies.

Jus­tice An­der­son and his col­leagues agreed as they found that min­i­mum hu­man rights stan­dards iden­ti­fied in the Bill of Rights un­der the RTC had to ap­ply in or­der to give ef­fect to Ram­samooj's right to free­dom of move­ment.

"It un­law­ful­ly im­pedes free move­ment and can­not be rec­on­ciled with the hu­man rights base­line un­der com­mu­ni­ty law," Jus­tice An­der­son said.

They found that Suri­name could not seek to re­ly on a sec­tion of the RTC, which al­lows mem­ber States to ap­ply le­gal pro­vi­sions which con­tra­vene hu­man rights in or­der to pro­tect pub­lic moral­i­ty and safe­ty.

"On­ly in rare cir­cum­stances can a mem­ber State be per­mit­ted to un­der­mine treaty-based rights," Jus­tice An­der­son said.

They not­ed that Suri­name in­her­it­ed the "beperk­ing or­der" pro­vi­sion while it was still a Dutch colony and point­ed out that the Nether­lands has since passed leg­is­la­tion to af­ford le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to those held un­der such, as it recog­nised as­so­ci­at­ed hu­man rights con­cerns.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in the case, late last year, Suri­name's lawyer Hans Lim A Po said that his client would abide by the CCJ's rul­ing on the is­sue.

Lim A Po said: "The gov­ern­ment and every de­part­ment of gov­ern­ment would be oblig­ed to com­ply with that de­ci­sion."

Lim A Po stat­ed that leg­is­la­tion amend­ments may be re­quired as well as changes to of­fi­cial pol­i­cy.

"It could be ex­e­cut­ed," he said.

Ram­samooj was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Narvin­dra Ram­nanan, Chase Pe­gus, and Suri­namese at­tor­ney Mil­ton Caste­len.

T&T was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Mur­vani Ojah-Ma­haraj, Lau­ra-Lee Hack­shaw, and Lau­ra Per­sad.