A nearly 10-year battle for gay rights in Trinidad and Tobago is in the hands of a final appeals court in England. The case, which could decriminalize gay sex in the eastern Caribbean nation, was filed in February 2017 by Jason Jones, who argues that so-called “buggery” laws in the twin-island nation that prohibit gay sex are unconstitutional.

Background

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

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, with Trinidad’s High Court finding the laws unconstitutional in April 2018, but a local appeals court partially reversing that ruling in March 2025.

Implications

The case 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In 1991, the Bahamas decriminalized homosexuality, while the U.K. government repealed such laws in 2001 in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.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.

Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.