SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A nearly 10-year battle for gay rights in Trinidad and Tobago could end Wednesday at a final appeals court in England.
Supreme Court judges in London will hold 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 date from the colonial era and prohibit gay sex are unconstitutional. Those found guilty could receive up to five years in prison.
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. In July of that year, Trinidad's Court of Appeals allowed Jones to seek a ruling from the final court of appeals in England.
Now, the case is before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and activists across the Caribbean are closely watching the outcome.
In 1991, the Bahamas decriminalized homosexuality, while the U.K government repealed such laws in 2001 in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Recently, judges have struck down similar laws in Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda. Gay sex, however, remains a crime in Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Jones, who is currently 61 and 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 multi-racial 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 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 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is composed of five judges. They could issue a ruling as soon as Wednesday's hearing ends, although they don't have a deadline to do so.
