Court overturns gay sex ban in Trinidad and Tobago

Detailed summary

The highest court of appeal for Trinidad and Tobago has struck down a law criminalising gay sex, a landmark ruling for LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean. Read More:…

The highest court of appeal for Trinidad and Tobago struck down a long-running law that criminalized gay sex in the island nation, a landmark ruling for LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean.

The UK-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — the final court of appeal for British dependencies and overseas territories — issued a unanimous decision Tuesday that the 1986 Sexual Offences Act could not be used to prosecute private, consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex.

The law had previously carried sentences of two years for “serious indecency” and five years for “buggery.”

The decade-long legal battle to strike down the law was driven by LGBTQ Trinidadian activist Jason Jones, who said the ruling validated his campaign.

“What I’m going to be doing in the coming months is very targeted activism about how the Caribbean, not just Trinidad and Tobago, deals with endemic homophobia,” Jones told AFP after the verdict was read.

The court said constitutional rights must be interpreted in a way that makes them “practical and effective in the present day, not in the past.”

Freedom Law Chambers, the law firm that represented Jones, said in a statement that the judgement represented a “phenomenal victory for gay rights, equal dignity and respect for private and family life in Trinidad and Tobago.”

UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk welcomed the judgment in a statement, calling it a significant milestone for rights and equality.

“I hope the judgment will help remove a longstanding source of stigma, exclusion, barriers and violence experienced by Trinidadians and Tobagonians based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” Turk said.

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