English court set to rule on final challenge to Trinidad’s gay sex ban

A near­ly 10-year bat­tle for gay rights in Trinidad and To­ba­go could end on Wednes­day at a fi­nal ap­peals court in Eng­land.

Supreme Court judges in Lon­don held a hear­ing on a land­mark hu­man rights case that could de­crim­i­nal­ize gay sex in the east­ern Caribbean na­tion, po­ten­tial­ly set­ting a prece­dent for the large­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Caribbean re­gion.

The case was filed in Feb­ru­ary 2017 by Ja­son Jones, who ar­gues that so-called “bug­gery” laws in the twin-is­land na­tion that pro­hib­it gay sex, dat­ing from when the coun­try was a British colony, are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. Those found guilty could re­ceive up to five years in prison.

Jones is rep­re­sent­ed by lawyers in­clud­ing Anand Ram­lo­gan, the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Who are we to vol­un­teer that gay peo­ple should starve be­cause we don’t like the meat that they eat?” Ram­lo­gan told the pan­el of judges.

“Con­sti­tu­tion­al rights ex­ist pre­cise­ly be­cause ma­jori­ties are not al­ways right. They en­sure that the dig­ni­ty and equal­i­ty of every cit­i­zen are not left to the chang­ing tides of pub­lic opin­ion.”

Op­pos­ing Jones are Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gov­ern­ment, backed by the coun­try’s Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es and its largest Hin­du or­ga­ni­za­tion, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha.

The case has wound its way through sev­er­al courts. In April 2018, Trinidad’s High Court found the laws un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, but a lo­cal ap­peals court par­tial­ly re­versed that rul­ing in March 2025. Four months lat­er, Trinidad’s Court of Ap­peals al­lowed Jones to seek a rul­ing from the fi­nal court of ap­peal in Eng­land.

The case, which is now be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don, is be­ing close­ly watched by ac­tivists across the Caribbean.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is an in­de­pen­dent coun­try but al­so a re­pub­lic with­in the British Com­mon­wealth, so the Privy Coun­cil is its fi­nal court of ap­peals. The coun­try has pushed for the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice to re­place the Privy Coun­cil.

In 1991, the Ba­hamas de­crim­i­nal­ized ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, while the U.K. gov­ern­ment re­pealed such laws in 2001 in An­guil­la, the British Vir­gin Is­lands, the Cay­man Is­lands, Montser­rat and the Turks and Caicos Is­lands. Else­where in the Caribbean, judges have re­cent­ly struck down sim­i­lar laws in Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, St. Lu­cia and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

Gay sex re­mains a crime in Grena­da, Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go and St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines — all for­mer British colonies. In the U.K., gay sex was de­crim­i­nal­ized in 1967, more than 400 years af­ter bug­gery laws were passed dur­ing the reign of King Hen­ry VI­II, with the last ex­e­cu­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with the crime oc­cur­ring in 1835.

“Ja­son Jones asks for no spe­cial priv­i­lege. He asks that the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­tects him as it does every oth­er cit­i­zen,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Jones, 61, who has been open­ly gay since age 16, left Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1996 be­cause of what he de­scribed as ho­mo­pho­bic vi­o­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

“His ex­pe­ri­ence is part of a wider pic­ture,” LGBTQ groups sup­port­ing Jones said in a re­cent court fil­ing. “(He) is un­able to ful­ly ex­press his sex­u­al­i­ty with­out be­ing brand­ed a crim­i­nal.”

Jones ar­gues that crim­i­nal­iz­ing gay sex is a moral stance, as­sert­ing that “Trinidad and To­ba­go is a sec­u­lar so­ci­ety and a mul­tira­cial one. Chris­t­ian moral­i­ty is nei­ther uni­ver­sal nor su­pe­ri­or.”

While the coun­try’s so-called bug­gery laws have not been en­forced in re­cent his­to­ry, at­tor­neys and ac­tivists say they still send a mes­sage.

“A law of this kind op­er­ates not on­ly through ar­rest and con­vic­tion, but through the stig­ma, fear, con­ceal­ment and ex­clu­sion,” ac­cord­ing to a re­cent­ly filed writ­ten ar­gu­ment by ac­tivists in fa­vor of Jones.

It as­sert­ed that crim­i­nal­iz­ing gay sex “com­pounds stig­ma at pre­cise­ly the stage at which young peo­ple may be form­ing iden­ti­ty, seek­ing sup­port, ac­cess­ing ed­u­ca­tion and health­care, and de­cid­ing whether it is safe to dis­close abuse, bul­ly­ing or self-harm risks.”

The Privy Coun­cil pan­el of five judges could is­sue a rul­ing as soon as Wednes­day’s hear­ing ends, al­though they don’t have a dead­line to do so. —SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co (AP)

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Sto­ry by DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press