Key Takeaways
- Trinidad and Tobago’s “buggery” (sodomy) law, dating from 1925 and incorporated into the 1986 Sexual Offences Act, criminalises consensual anal sex between men with a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment.
- LGBTQ+ activist Jason Jones successfully challenged the law in 2018, when a Trinidad and Tobago High Court ruled it violated his constitutional rights to privacy and equality.
- The Attorney General intervened, and the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s decision; Jones’s appeal is now before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London, the highest appellate court for several Commonwealth nations.
- While many Caribbean states and UK overseas territories have repealed similar colonial‑era statutes, anal sex remains criminalised in Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
- The Trinidad and Tobago government argues the case could affect broader “savings clauses” that preserve colonial laws after independence, warning that a ruling might prompt a review of other inherited statutes.
- Jones contends the state has wasted public funds by resisting reform and maintains the law dehumanises LGBTQ+ people; he is confident the JCPC will strike down the outdated legislation.
- Former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar notes that the only Anglophone American countries still outlawing homosexuality are former British colonies, suggesting a direct colonial legacy.
- The JCPC hearing, expected to yield a judgment in three to six months, is being closely watched across the region as a potential catalyst for further decriminalisation and a test of how post‑colonial constitutions balance human rights with saved colonial laws.
Background of the Buggery Law and Jason Jones’ Challenge
The legislation at the heart of the dispute originates from a 1925 British colonial ordinance that criminalised “buggery,” a term historically used to denote anal intercourse. When Trinidad and Tobago drafted its Sexual Offences Act in 1986, the ordinance was retained verbatim, making consensual same‑sex activity punishable by up to five years in prison. In 2017, LGBTQ+ rights advocate Jason Jones filed a constitutional claim, asserting that the statute infringed upon his right to privacy and equality before the law. After a thorough hearing, the Trinidad and Tobago High Court ruled in Jones’s favour in 2018, declaring the buggery provision unconstitutional and ordering its removal from the statute books. The judgment was hailed by activists as a landmark victory for sexual autonomy in the Caribbean.
Appeal and Intervention by Attorney General
The triumph was short‑lived. The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago intervened, arguing that the High Court had overstepped its authority and that the law should remain intact pending further judicial review. The Court of Appeal subsequently quashed the High Court’s decision, reinstating the criminalisation of anal sex. Undeterred, Jones lodged an appeal with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), the ultimate appellate forum for several Commonwealth jurisdictions, including Trinidad and Tobago. The JCPC’s involvement elevates the case from a domestic constitutional matter to an international human‑rights scrutiny, with the potential to reshape legal norms across the region.
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Composition and Jurisdiction
The JCPC sits in London and comprises the same judges who serve on the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court. Although it is technically a committee of the Privy Council, its decisions are binding on the jurisdictions that have retained it as their final court of appeal, among them Trinidad and Tobago, other Caribbean territories, and various British overseas possessions. The committee’s role is to interpret constitutional provisions and assess whether domestic legislation conforms to fundamental rights guarantees. Because its judges are drawn from the UK’s highest court, the JCPC brings a wealth of expertise in human‑rights jurisprudence, making its forthcoming judgment particularly influential for cases involving privacy, equality, and the legacy of colonial law.
Regional Context: Decriminalisation Trends in the Caribbean
Across the Caribbean, a clear trend toward decriminalising homosexuality has emerged in recent years. The Bahamas repealed its sodomy law in 1991, and the UK government removed similar statutes from its overseas territories—Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands—in 2001. More recently, courts in Barbados, Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Antigua and Barbuda have struck down colonial‑era prohibitions on consensual same‑sex conduct. Despite this progress, anal sex remains a criminal offence in five Anglophone nations: Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The persistence of these laws underscores the uneven pace of reform and highlights the continuing relevance of colonial legal inheritances in the region.
Government’s Position: Savings Clause Argument
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Kamla Persad‑Bissessar, has framed the JCPC appeal as a broader constitutional issue rather than a narrow dispute over a single statute. She warned that the outcome could affect the numerous “savings clauses” embedded in the country’s independence constitution—provisions designed to preserve existing British‑era laws unless expressly repealed. Persad‑Bissessar suggested that a ruling overturning the buggery law might prompt a reassessment of other saved statutes, ranging from property regulations to public‑order measures. Darrell Allahar, a minister in the Prime Minister’s office and one of her legal representatives, echoed this view, describing the privy council hearing as a valuable opportunity to clarify the scope and limits of savings clauses in light of modern human‑rights guarantees.
Jason Jones’ Personal Stance and Critique of the State
Jones has been vocal about the personal and financial toll of the protracted legal battle. He contends that the state and parliament could have repealed the offending law at any point over the past decade, sparing taxpayers millions of dollars in litigation costs. Describing the buggery provision as dehumanising, Jones argues that it simultaneously brands LGBTQ+ individuals as criminals and victims, undermining their dignity and exposing them to discrimination and violence. Despite the setbacks, he remains optimistic, asserting that the JCPC will not uphold a “500‑year‑old homophobic piece of British law” in 2026 and that he stands on the “right side of history.” His confidence reflects both a legal conviction and a broader moral claim that consensual intimacy between adults should be free from state sanction.
International Perspectives: Leo Varadkar’s Analysis
Adding an international dimension, former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar—a global LGBTQI and human‑rights fellow at Harvard University—has highlighted the striking pattern that the only five countries in the Americas still criminalising homosexuality are former British colonies. In a recent Harvard paper, Varadkar wrote that from Canada to Chile, 35 nations in the Americas have long since decriminalised same‑sex relations, with the exceptions being Jamaica, Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada—all Anglophone and formerly part of the British Empire. He characterised this continuity as “not a coincidence,” suggesting that colonial legal frameworks have persisted long after the United Kingdom itself repealed analogous statutes. Varadkar also noted that the JCPC judges, aware of Britain’s own enshrined rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, will be weighing those principles against the retained colonial provisions.
Human Rights Framework and Expectations
The JCPC’s deliberation is set against a backdrop of well‑established human‑rights norms in British law, including the right to privacy and the autonomy to make consensual choices about one’s body and sexual life. The committee’s forthcoming judgment—expected within three to six months—will not only determine the fate of Trinidad and Tobago’s buggery law but may also clarify the extent to which savings clauses can shield outdated legislation from constitutional challenge. Activists across the region are watching closely, anticipating that a favourable ruling could catalyse further decriminalisation efforts and prompt a re‑examination of other colonial‑era statutes. Conversely, a decision upholding the law would reinforce the argument that post‑independence states retain the authority to preserve inherited legal norms, potentially slowing the march toward LGBTQ+ equality in the Caribbean.
In sum, the case before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council encapsulates a clash between historical legal legacies and contemporary human‑rights aspirations. Its outcome holds significance not only for Jason Jones and the LGBTQ+ community in Trinidad and Tobago but also for the broader conversation about how former colonies confront, retain, or discard the laws imposed during the era of British rule.