The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) is call­ing for ur­gent con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, par­tic­u­lar­ly the re­moval of the sav­ings law clause. The Court of Ap­peal's de­ci­sion in At­tor­ney Gen­er­al v Ja­son Jones found that sec­tions of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which crim­i­nalise bug­gery and gross in­de­cen­cy, in­fringe up­on fun­da­men­tal rights.

How­ev­er, the ma­jor­i­ty of the Court ruled that these laws re­main valid be­cause they were in­her­it­ed from the colo­nial era and are pro­tect­ed by the sav­ings law clause. This clause pre­vents cer­tain pre-in­de­pen­dence laws from be­ing de­clared un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, even if they vi­o­late mod­ern hu­man rights stan­dards.

LATT ar­gued that this le­gal shield is out­dat­ed and in­com­pat­i­ble with con­tem­po­rary de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. The As­so­ci­a­tion said in a re­lease that sim­i­lar claus­es have been re­moved or rein­ter­pret­ed in oth­er Caribbean na­tions with­out neg­a­tive con­se­quences. “The re­moval of the sav­ings law clause will not have cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences,” LATT said, point­ing out that in places like Bar­ba­dos and Guyana, such claus­es are “read to con­form with the Con­sti­tu­tion.”