The unanimous ruling ends a nearly decade-long legal battle and removes criminal penalties for private, consensual relations between adults

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — International News Service – Trinidad and Tobago’s highest court has struck down laws criminalizing private, consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex, delivering a final victory in a constitutional challenge that began nearly 10 years ago.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London unanimously allowed an appeal brought by Trinidadian LGBTQ rights campaigner Jason Jones. Because the Privy Council remains Trinidad and Tobago’s court of final appeal, the decision cannot be appealed further.

Sections 13 and 16 of the country’s 1986 Sexual Offences Act created offences commonly described as “buggery” and “serious indecency.” The law allowed private relations between an adult man and woman but not between adults of the same sex. Violations could carry prison terms of up to five years, although the provisions had not been enforced in recent history.

The court found that the provisions violated the constitutional right to respect for private and family life. It rejected the government’s argument that the legislation was protected from constitutional review because it repeated older, colonial-era laws.

The judges concluded that the 1986 act was a new and comprehensive legal regime adopted after Trinidad and Tobago’s Constitution came into force. It therefore could not rely on constitutional protections sometimes used to shield inherited laws from rights-based challenges.

Jones filed the case in 2017 after experiencing harassment, discrimination and violence linked to his sexual orientation. The High Court ruled in his favour in 2018, but the Court of Appeal restored part of the law in 2025, sending the dispute to the Privy Council.

The ruling does not settle every question of LGBTQ equality in Trinidad and Tobago, but it removes the threat of criminal prosecution and a legal foundation for discrimination. Its reasoning may also influence debate in other Commonwealth Caribbean countries where similar laws remain in force, including Jamaica, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Sources: Judicial Committee of the Privy Council | Human Rights Watch