Court Decision Reverses Progress on LGBTQ People’s Rights in Trinidad and Tobago

New York, New York - March 28, 2025 - Outright International notes with grave concern the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago on March 25, 2025, in the case of The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago v Jason Jones.

The judgment, which reverses the 2018 decriminalization ruling in the lower court, reinstates pre-independence sodomy laws in the country. Section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) is reinstated with a lesser penalty of five years, and Section 16 of the SOA is replaced by section 61 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1925.

While the court made it clear that these laws “are not reasonably justifiable in a society that has proper respect for the rights and freedoms of the individual,” it cited the country’s rigid savings law clause (a constitutional provision that shields colonial-era laws from being overturned by the courts) as binding.