Privy Council rules in favour of gay man who challenged Trinidad's buggery laws

LONDON, CMC – The London-based Privy Council Tuesday ruled “unanimously” in favour of Jason Jones, who challenged laws criminalising consensual same-sex relations between adults in Trinidad and Tobago.

In a statement issued before the Privy Council hearing, Jones had said he was confident the country’s highest appellate court would uphold his claim, saying: “The Privy Council will never uphold a 500-year-old homophobic piece of British law that goes against the rights of the individual! Not in 2026! I’m going to win”.

Jones, 62, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and now lives in Britain, welcomed the ruling but said it did not address wider issues of “human rights and equality for LGBTQ+ people which have been denied using British colonial era laws across the Commonwealth and beyond”.