Fridae

Jason Jones won his appeal at Trinidad and Tobago’s highest court on Tuesday, 10 November. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that two provisions of the country’s Sexual Offences Act cannot criminalise private, consensual sex between adults of the same sex.

The judges in London found that sections 13 and 16 of the 1986 Act infringed Jones’s constitutional rights, including respect for his private and family life. They dismissed the Attorney General’s cross-appeal. The judges found that the law interfered with that right even though there had been no prosecutions for many years.

Jones brought the case in 2017. He won in the High Court the following year, but in 2025 a majority of Trinidad and Tobago’s Court of Appeal restored parts of the older criminal law. Jones took that decision to the Privy Council. He called Tuesday’s ruling a “stunning victory” in an interview with the Associated Press.

The court has still to issue its final order on how the two sections should be worded. For now, the judges favour restoring the High Court’s remedy, which excluded private, consensual acts between adults from both offences. The parties can file written submissions before the judges decide the exact terms.