THE Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) on Wednesday heard the final appeal in a long-running legal battle to decriminalise same-sex intimacy, including buggery, in Trinidad & Tobago with a judgment expected before the end of this year.

The case, which could have implications for Jamaica and other countries in the region — Jason Jones vs Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago — is a constitutional challenge against the buggery laws in Trinidad’s Sexual Offences Act, 1986, which criminalise acts of buggery and other forms of same-sex intimacy with potentially lengthy prison sentences.

The laws being challenged in this case are sections 13 and 16 of Trinidad and Tobago’s Sexual Offences Act 1986, which criminalise buggery (anal sex) between men, or by a man with a woman, and acts of serious indecency between men.