A landmark ruling by London’s Privy Council has struck down Trinidad and Tobago’s law criminalising consensual sexual relations between men, following a human-rights challenge brought by a gay man.
Jason Jones, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, argued that provisions of the Caribbean nation’s Sexual Offences Act violated fundamental rights guaranteed by the country’s constitution.
Jones first succeeded before Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court, but that decision was later overturned. He then appealed to the Privy Council in London, the final court of appeal for Trinidad and Tobago and several other Commonwealth countries.
The Privy Council declared the law unconstitutional. Delivering the court’s ruling, Judge Philip Sales said that “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”.
