Trinidad and Tobago recriminalises homosexuality

An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago has reestablished the criminalisation of consensual same-sex relationships in the country, according to ‘Washington Blade’.

In 2017, Jason Jones, an LGBTQ+ activist from Trinidad and Tobago residing in the U.K., challenged Sections 13 and 16 of the country’s Sexual Offenses Act. The following year, High Court Justice Devindra Rampersad declared them unconstitutional.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago appealed Rampersad’s decision.

Court of Appeal Justices Nolan Bereaux and Charmaine Pemberton reversed the ruling on March 25. As reported by the Daily Express newspaper, Justice Vasheist Kokaram dissented.

“As an LGBTQ+ citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, this regressive judgement has ripped up my contract as a citizen of T&T and again makes me an unapprehended criminal in the eyes of the law,” stated Jones in a message shared on social media. “The TT Court of Appeal has effectively put a target on the back of LGBTQIA+ people and made us lower class citizens in our own country.”

In recent years, countries like Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and Dominica have decriminalised consensual same-sex relationships.

In 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights declared that Jamaica must abolish its colonial-era sodomy law. Yet, in 2023, the Jamaican Supreme Court ruled against a gay man who challenged this law.

Last year, a judge from the highest court in St. Vincent and the Grenadines dismissed two cases contesting the country’s sodomy laws.

In his statement, Jones mentioned that he “will be exercising my right of appeal and taking this matter to the” Privy Council, which is an appellate court for British territories that also hears cases from Commonwealth nations.

Although King Charles III is not the head of state for Trinidad and Tobago, the country remains a member of the Commonwealth.

“I hope justice will be done and these heinous discriminatory laws, a legacy of British colonialism, will be removed by the British courts,” stated Jones.