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The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London is expected to rule on whether laws criminalising same-sex sexual acts in Trinidad and Tobago comply with the country’s constitution, according to CNN.
The court remains the highest appeals court for several former British colonies. The case concerns provisions criminalising “buggery” and “indecency” between gay partners, which are backed by Trinidad and Tobago’s government.
The laws allow prison sentences of up to five years for “buggery” and up to two years for “gross indecency”. The term “buggery” is largely obsolete in modern legal systems and is considered offensive.
Trinidad and Tobago is an independent republic in the British Commonwealth. While several former colonies have overturned or repealed colonial-era laws criminalising same-sex acts, similar restrictions remain in dozens of countries. England decriminalised gay sex in the 1960s.
The appeal was brought by Jason Jones, an LGBTQ+ rights activist born in Trinidad who lives in the United Kingdom. He first challenged the law in Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court and won in 2018, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision in 2025. Jones and his lawyers then took the case to the Privy Council.
If the Privy Council rules against the law, activists and legal experts say the decision could encourage similar challenges in other former colonies. According to UK charity Human Dignity Trust, at least four other former British colonies in the Caribbean — Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — criminalise sexual activity between men, although not all are within the Privy Council’s appellate jurisdiction.
Before the ruling, Jones told CNN that he filed the lawsuit to start a movement towards equality, while acknowledging that progress would take time.
“My case is not just about decriminalizing (gay sexual acts in) countries in the Commonwealth that carry these British colonial-era laws. It’s about making people aware (of) how homophobia is being weaponized to take away our democratic rights,” he said.
The case also draws attention to the continuing influence of Britain’s imperial legacy on the legal systems of some former colonies, and to questions about why independent countries retain policies abandoned by their former ruler decades ago.
“We have to still think about the fact that these laws were inherited from our colonial masters,” said Ria Mohammed, an attorney and director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights. “They (the British) have long since abandoned them. So why are we holding on to them?”
The law’s origins date back centuries. England passed a “Buggery Act” during the rule of Henry VIII in the 1500s, and the British Empire later introduced a version in Trinidad and Tobago through a 1925 act.
After independence, Trinidad and Tobago retained the ban under a savings law clause that shields pre-independence laws from legal challenges, Mohammed said. The clause was originally introduced by the British as a temporary measure to prevent legal vacuums during the transition to independence. Some former colonies, including Trinidad and Tobago, continue to apply such clauses, which critics say have kept outdated laws in force.
In 1986, Trinidad and Tobago repealed the sexual offences provisions of the 1925 act and introduced tougher measures, increasing prison sentences and making women liable for indecency offences. That change paved the way for Jones’ challenge.
Jones’ lawyers argued that the 1986 provisions were distinct from those in the 1925 colonial-era act and therefore were not protected by the savings clause. Jones told CNN: “This is no longer blaming Henry VIII and the British. This is our own homegrown homophobia.”
A ruling in Jones’ favour would apply only to Trinidad and Tobago. However, campaigners hope it could help prompt challenges in other former colonies that still use the London-based court as their highest appeals court.
“The decision is going to be binding in Trinidad and Tobago. But as a matter of logic, if you are a part of the appellate structure of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council … it is unlikely that a case from a different jurisdiction would be decided in a different way,” Mohammed said.
The outcome is expected to be closely watched across the English-speaking Caribbean, where several former colonies retain the Privy Council as their final court of appeal and continue to enforce laws against gay sex.
Jones’ case has also renewed debate in some countries over whether to replace the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice as their final court of appeal. Belize, Guyana, Barbados, Saint Lucia and Dominica have already made that change.
Mohammed said it was ironic that Trinidad and Tobago had to use the judicial system of its former colonial ruler to challenge a colonial-era policy.
“That is the ultimate irony, and it also is a moment for us to sit and reflect about what are we really doing?” she said. “It really is about us having a mature conversation about what kind of society do we want to build.”
