A final court of appeals in England struck down a centuries-old gay sex ban in Trinidad and Tobago in a ruling on Tuesday that activists around the world celebrated.
“Those laws cannot be regarded as reasonably justifiable in a society that has a proper respect for the rights and freedom of the individual,” said Judge Philip James Sales of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
“Laws which seek to criminalize such activities cannot be justified. Trinidad’s Court of Appeals later allowed Jones to seek a ruling from the Privy Council in England. Trinidad and Tobago is a sovereign republic within the British Commonwealth and still uses London’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as its highest court of final appeal. However, the country has pushed for the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council. A provision in some Caribbean constitutions protects colonial laws from legal challenges, including in Trinidad and Tobago.
In April 2018, Trinidad’s High Court found the laws unconstitutional, but a local appeals court partially reversed that ruling in March 2025. Trinidad and Tobago’s government sought a ruling that would uphold the March 2025 ruling. A majority of justices in 2025 found that the High Court erred by allowing judges to change a law.
“The current understanding of the fundamental individual right to respect for private and family life is that it protects such a core part of human identity, as one’s sexual orientation and the sexual activities carried on in private between consenting adults to give expression to that identity,” Sales said.
