Privy Council rejects criminalisation of consensual gay sex

The Privy Coun­cil has ruled in favour of Ja­son Jones in his long-run­ning le­gal chal­lenge against laws crim­i­nal­is­ing con­sen­su­al same-sex re­la­tions be­tween adults in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered on Tues­day, No­vem­ber 10, the Board al­lowed Jones’ ap­peal and dis­missed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s cross-ap­peal, find­ing that sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 in­fringe his fun­da­men­tal rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The Board agreed with for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, who found that seg­ments of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 that crim­i­nalised sex­u­al acts be­tween con­sent­ing males was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.