It is unfortunate that not many of us who have followed
integration matters over the years have been reminding regional leaders and
policymakers about the hollow PR that accompanied adoption of the Caricom
Charter of Civil Society (CCS) almost 30 years ago.
In previous dispatches, I have - correctly or incorrectly at
the technical level - described the statement of principles and values as our
unratified but collective Caribbean “bill of rights.”
Yet, the enlightened intervention of 1997 remained largely
neglected, referenced fleetingly in speeches, but seldom treated as a living
instrument capable of shaping public policy or actively protecting citizens.
Had such disregard not been the case, we could well have
settled numerous intra-regional and even domestic quarrels by reference to what
can be summarised as a shared commitment to democracy, human rights, due
process, transparency, participation, and social justice.
The recent Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) judgment in the
Derek Ramsamooj case has the potential to finally change that.
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| Judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice |
Essentially, T&T political scientist, Ramsamooj,
asserted that the rights accorded to Caricom nationals under the Revised Treaty
of Chaguaramas (RTC) are not effective without the protection of fundamental
human rights, specifically those rights articulated in the Charter.
True, the CCJ ruling does not magically transform the
Charter into a legally binding treaty. Indeed, the judges expressly rejected
that proposition. However, they also dispelled the notion that it is merely a
symbolic declaration to gather dust on government shelves.
Instead, the Court found that the Charter serves as an
important guide to interpreting Community law and identifying the general
principles that underpin the Caricom project.
That distinction is enormously significant - at least for
those of us who have advocated for the CCS to be recognisable as a basis for
assertion of human rights at law.
I followed the situation with Ramsamooj from the start and
did not feel overly confident that this aspect of his claim would have emerged
as a decisive factor.
For years, regional governments displayed remarkable
tardiness in advancing the Charter’s objectives. Successive Caricom Summits
endorsed its principles, yet little effort was made to embed them
systematically in regional governance.
The result has been an integration movement exclusively
focused on markets, trade, and functional cooperation while paying insufficient
attention to the human rights dimensions of development.
The Ramsamooj judgment revealed why this matters. Regional
governments should sit up and take careful note. Those here in T&T who
continue to proclaim the untruth that “we not in de CCJ” should also be
particularly interested, as the matter was adjudged under the Court’s Original
Jurisdiction to which all Member States are subject.
The judges relied on the CCS, together with national constitutions
and international human rights instruments, to identify a region-wide baseline
of rights and freedoms.
They recognised that RTC rights are meaningless if
governments can at the same time restrict personal liberty, deny due process,
or limit access to representation without adequate safeguards.
Ramsamooj was detained and had his passport confiscated by
Surinamese authorities between 2020 and 2022. He was charged in 2020, five
months into his detention, with a variety of offences including fraud and money
laundering.
He had also been subjected to a Dutch-derived legal
procedure known as “beperking”, or restriction, which gives authorities power
to limit communication between a detainee and the outside world during an
investigation.
In Ramsamooj’s case, this served to deny him direct access
to legal counsel during critical stages of his detention and interrogation. He
was also questioned in Dutch through a translator and signed documents in a
language he did not understand.
The CCJ concluded that such application of the “beperking”
procedure breached Community law. The judges found that freedom of movement and
other treaty rights cannot be exercised effectively unless they are accompanied
by minimum human rights protections.
Among these is the right of an accused person to have access
to legal counsel of his or her choice. The judges noted that this right is
entrenched in the constitutions of all Caricom member states and has
effectively become a “regional customary standard.”
Based on this particular feature of the ruling, the Court
awarded Ramsamooj US$30,000 in damages.
The Ramsamooj decision should signal that the era of human
rights as secondary to economic integration may change. Caricom nationals who
move, work, invest, and provide services across the region now have judicial
confirmation that certain minimum standards should accompany those freedoms.
The CCS may still lack formal binding force, but the CCJ has
made clear that its values matter.
