After nearly a decade of litigation, a Trinidadian activist's effort to strike down one of the Caribbean's last colonial-era bans on same-sex intimacy has reached its final courtroom. This week the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London began hearing Jason Jones's appeal, the last available step in a case whose outcome could reshape how the region treats laws inherited from British rule.
The panel, drawn from the same bench as the UK Supreme Court, is led by its president, Lord Reed of Allermuir, sitting with Lord Sales, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Briggs of Westbourne and Lady Rose. As the highest court of appeal for several independent Commonwealth countries, the JCPC's decision will be final. A ruling is expected within three to six months.
At issue are sections 13 and 16 of Trinidad and Tobago's Sexual Offences Act, provisions rooted in a 1925 statute that criminalise consensual intimacy between men. Jones, now 61, first challenged the law in 2017, and in 2018 the country's High Court agreed it violated his constitutional rights to privacy and equality. That victory was overturned in 2025, when the Court of Appeal ruled that a constitutional "savings clause", a mechanism designed to preserve pre-independence laws, shielded the ban from challenge and left only Parliament able to repeal it. The appeal court did, however, reduce the maximum penalty from 25 years to five.
A test case for the region
The savings clause is what gives the hearing weight far beyond Trinidad. Similar provisions appear in constitutions across the English-speaking Caribbean, and courts have recently struck down comparable laws in Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, and Antigua and Barbuda. Jamaica removed its own blanket clause through a 2011 constitutional amendment. Jones argues the ruling "has the power to decriminalise over 44 million people" around the world.
Trinidad's government is contesting the appeal but frames the hearing constructively. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told The Guardian the decision would be "profound", offering "guidance as to which [colonial laws] we keep, which ones we don't keep". Her lawyer Darrell Allahar called it "a very good exercise".
Jones's counsel, former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, told the court that "constitutional rights exist precisely because majorities are not always right". Jones himself remained hopeful: "I know I'm on the right side of history."