A London court has decriminalised adult consensual gay sex in Trinidad and Tobago following an 11-year legal battle led by one man.

In Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago v Jones, five judges at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council voted unanimously to overturn the criminalisation of same-sex intimacy under the Caribbean state's 1986 Sexual Offences Act. The law made sex between consenting adult men punishable by 10 years in prison.

The judgment marks the end of an appeal initially launched in 2015 and which reached the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago in 2017.

The legal campaign was brought by Jason Jones, a Trinidad and Tobago-born LGBTQ+ rights activist. Jones initially fled his home country in 1996 after experiencing homophobic violence. He returns to Trinidad and Tobago frequently and lived there again between 2010-14, but now lives in England.

Jones’ case challenged the application of the ‘savings clause’, which protects certain laws predating the country’s independence from constitutional challenge. It was this clause that caused the case’s 2018 victory to be reversed, leading to this final appeal.

The judgment makes clear that colonial-era laws that breach fundamental human rights will not be saved just because they are ‘traditional’. It demonstrates that the 1986 act (which updated the Offences Against the Person Act 1925) ‘was not a repeal and reenactment within the meaning of the relevant constitutional provisions’, which is a prerequisite for it to fall within the savings clause.

In its unanimous judgment, the JCPC board asserted that the state must protect people in the circumstances in which they live today, and said: ‘The ability to form a deep connection with another person through an intimate and loving relationship is a vital interest for all human beings.’

Before this decision, Trinidad and Tobago was one of some 34 Commonwealth countries continuing to criminalise homosexuality. 

Jones said: ‘Whilst I welcome this judgment, it does not, however, address the main issues of human rights and equality for LGBTQ+ people which have been denied using British colonial-era laws across the Commonwealth and beyond. These laws never reflected who we are as a people and a nation: diverse, multiracial, and secular. They told LGBTQ+ people that we were criminals in our own country. That message ends today.

‘On a personal note, I am extremely proud to have led this challenge, but the work doesn’t end here. Let this victory be the rallying call to accelerate the fight for full equality and rights for all people, everywhere.’