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 yes­ter­day, 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).