“Awaiting Judgement”: that is what the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—the final appellate court for Trinidad and Tobago—said at the end of Wednesday’s hearing in a landmark case.

Jason Jones , a declared homosexual, awaits the end of a nine-year roller coaster journey through the courts to strike down the sodomy laws of the twin-island republic. 

While Caribbean LGBTQ+ activists are closely watching the case, especially in light of recent decriminalisation victories in Barbados (2022) and Dominica (2024), the impending JCPC ruling will profoundly dictate the legal future of other colonial-era laws (dated 1925) across the English-speaking Caribbean.

It is more than ironic that the challenged laws originated under British colonial rule in the Caribbean while the appeal is being decided by a British court, composed of Lord Reed, Lord Sales, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Briggs and Lady Rose.

Privy Council decisions bind only the countries that retain it as their final court. A ruling could influence legal challenges elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The court affidavit describes the appellant, Jones, “as a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, born on 5th September 1964 and raised in Port of Spain.

“He has been openly homosexual since the age of 16. After experiencing harassment and discrimination for his sexual orientation, he relocated to England in 1996.

“The appellant returned to reside in Trinidad from 2010 to 2014 before relocating again to England. Between 1996 and 2010, and since 2015, the appellant has regularly visited his home country.”

Details of his experience as a homosexual male in Trinidad and Tobago are also included in his affidavit, which was filed on 23 February 2017.

In April 2018, Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court ruled in favour of Jason Jones in his constitutional challenge against the Attorney General, declaring Sections 13 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act unconstitutional.

The landmark judgment found that the provisions criminalising consensual same-sex sexual activity—”buggery” and “serious indecency” between consenting adults—violated the constitutional rights to privacy, liberty, and equality.

But seven years after his High Court victory, the Court of Appeal in Port of Spain struck down the High Court ruling in March 2025 and allowed the appeal of the Attorney General.

Jones is seeking a declaration that Sections 13 and 16 of the Trinidad and Tobago Sexual Offences Act infringe his fundamental rights under the Constitution.

Section 13 of the Act criminalises “buggery,” which includes anal intercourse and consensual sex between men.

Section 16 prohibits “sex acts” other than sexual intercourse between a male and a female who are both over the age of 16 and consent to the act.

Jones is seeking a declaration that Sections 13 and 16 of the Act are unconstitutional and infringe his right to respect for his private and family life, his right to liberty and security of the person, his right to equality before the law and the protection of the law, his right to freedom of thought and expression, and his right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

The maximum penalty for sodomy, as it stands, is five years in prison.