PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – May 25, 2026 – In a landmark ruling that clarifies core human rights and free movement protections for CARICOM nationals across the regional bloc, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has ordered Suriname to pay US$30,000 in damages to Derek Ramsamooj, a Trinidad-based political analyst and consultant who was unlawfully detained between 2020 and 2022.
Ramsamooj first brought his case before the CCJ after he was held by Surinamese law enforcement from October 2020 through September 2022. He argued that his prolonged detention violated fundamental protections guaranteed to him under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC), the binding legal agreement that underpins the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) regional integration project, enshrining the free movement of persons across member states.
In its ruling delivered Monday, the CCJ drew on precedent from the European Court of Human Rights case *Sardouz v. Turkey*, which established that timely, unimpeded access to legal representation is a foundational structural safeguard for fair judicial proceedings. The court found that Suriname’s domestic law – specifically Article 40 of the Suriname Code of Criminal Procedure (SCCP) – violates regional community law. The provision allows authorities to deny detainees access to legal counsel during the investigative stage of a case without putting in place compensatory measures to protect a defendant’s right to a fair defense. This gap, the court ruled, unlawfully restricts the free movement of CARICOM nationals and falls far short of the minimum human rights standards required by regional treaty law.
The court further emphasized that a claimant does not need to prove discriminatory treatment based on nationality to establish a violation of the rights laid out in the RTC. This marks a key clarification of regional treaty obligations for member states.
Addressing longstanding legal precedent on CARICOM free movement rules, Justice Anderson noted that the CCJ reaffirmed the core principle established in *Gilbert v. State of Barbados*: that the right to free movement under the RTC does not grant CARICOM nationals immunity from legitimate law enforcement action in host member states. However, the court distinguished the Ramsamooj case from the Gilbert precedent, noting that the domestic law applied in the Gilbert case was already consistent with RTC requirements. In contrast, the domestic Surinamese law authorizing Ramsamooj’s detention is itself incompatible with the regional treaty, as it fails to meet mandatory minimum human rights standards. This places the current case in line with existing precedent set in the *Mariline* line of court rulings.
The ruling also sharply narrows the circumstances under which member states can invoke Article 226 of the RTC to justify violations of treaty-based rights. Justice Anderson explained that Article 226, which allows member states to reference domestic legal procedures to justify state action, has an extremely limited role in such disputes. Only in the rarest of circumstances can a member state rely on the provision to excuse conduct that erodes the core substance of treaty-guaranteed rights when its domestic procedures fail to meet the minimum human rights standards required by CARICOM community law.
The decision is being widely viewed as a significant reinforcement of human rights protections for CARICOM citizens exercising their right to free movement across the region, setting a clearer legal standard for how member states must align domestic law with regional treaty obligations.