Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Hu­man rights cam­paign­er Ja­son Jones says he has made the im­pos­si­ble pos­si­ble, fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s land­mark Privy Coun­cil rul­ing which struck down laws crim­i­nal­is­ing con­sen­su­al same-sex re­la­tions be­tween adult men in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Board found that sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 in­fringe his fun­da­men­tal rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The Board agreed with for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, who found that seg­ments of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act 1986 that crim­i­nalised sex­u­al acts be­tween con­sent­ing males were un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

But while cel­e­brat­ing what he de­scribes as a vin­di­ca­tion of an 11-year le­gal bat­tle, Jones is al­ready look­ing be­yond the coun­try’s bor­ders. He al­so wants Par­lia­ment to ur­gent­ly re­move the Con­sti­tu­tion’s sav­ings clause, which he be­lieves con­tin­ues to sti­fle democ­ra­cy.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the rul­ing, Jones said he was pleased that the judg­ment re­spect­ed the hu­man rights of cit­i­zens.

“I’m very re­lieved that the court, you know, made a judg­ment that re­spect­ed the hu­man rights of the cit­i­zen. So I’m very re­lieved, and I’m al­so very vin­di­cat­ed be­cause every­body said that this was im­pos­si­ble. So I made the im­pos­si­ble pos­si­ble,” he said.

Jones said the de­ci­sion vin­di­cat­ed what he had been ad­vo­cat­ing for over the past 11 years, but in­sist­ed that the rul­ing should not sim­ply be viewed as a vic­to­ry for one in­di­vid­ual or com­mu­ni­ty.

In­stead, he de­scribed it as an­oth­er im­por­tant step in the coun­try’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic de­vel­op­ment.

“I re­al­ly want peo­ple to see this as not a vic­to­ry but a step­ping stone in the democ­ra­cy of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are a very young democ­ra­cy, and this is just one of the step­ping stones in us cre­at­ing a fair and equal so­ci­ety for all,” Jones said.

Ref­er­enc­ing the coun­try’s na­tion­al an­them, he said yes­ter­day’s de­ci­sion fi­nal­ly gave him a sense of be­long­ing and equal­i­ty un­der the law.

“As our na­tion­al an­them says, ‘Every creed and race find an equal space and place,’ and to­day I found my equal place.”

Jones sets sights on Caribbean

Jones con­tend­ed that the le­gal bat­tle in Trinidad and To­ba­go is on­ly the be­gin­ning.

Asked what comes next, he re­vealed that the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment could have far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for sev­er­al oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, in­clud­ing sev­en neigh­bour­ing Caribbean is­lands and Mau­ri­tius.

Jones al­so high­light­ed de­vel­op­ments in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, where a sim­i­lar de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion case had been ad­journed pend­ing the out­come of his ap­peal.

“My work now is to make sure that LGBTQ+ peo­ple are free across the en­tire re­gion, not just Trinidad and To­ba­go, but all is­lands. So that’s go­ing to be my next work,” he de­clared.

Jones said his com­mit­ment was dri­ven by the be­lief that no one should be left be­hind in the strug­gle for equal­i­ty.

While the Privy Coun­cil has ruled in his favour, Jones is al­so turn­ing his at­ten­tion to what he con­sid­ers an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant ob­sta­cle to con­sti­tu­tion­al progress.

He is chal­leng­ing Par­lia­ment to re­move the Con­sti­tu­tion’s sav­ings clause, which pro­tects cer­tain pre-in­de­pen­dence laws from be­ing struck down on con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds.

The pro­vi­sion has fea­tured promi­nent­ly in le­gal chal­lenges in­volv­ing laws in­her­it­ed from the colo­nial era.

In Jones’ case, the Privy Coun­cil found that the chal­lenged pro­vi­sions of the 1986 Sex­u­al Of­fences Act were new leg­is­la­tion and did not en­joy the pro­tec­tion of the sav­ings clause.

“I am chal­leng­ing Par­lia­ment to re­move the sav­ings clause and al­low us the free­dom to breathe,” he said.

He added: “The sav­ings clause sti­fles democ­ra­cy, and we must re­move it as a mat­ter of ur­gency.”

Pride TT and Queer Cor­ner Caribbean de­mand fur­ther re­form

Mean­while, Pride TT has wel­comed the Privy Coun­cil’s de­ci­sion but says the rul­ing must be fol­lowed by mean­ing­ful leg­isla­tive changes.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s co-founder and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Kennedy Everett Maraj, de­scribed the judg­ment as a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s jour­ney to­wards equal­i­ty, jus­tice and the pro­tec­tion of fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights.

Pride TT said the de­ci­sion was a vic­to­ry not on­ly for Jones and the LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty, but al­so for the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple that every in­di­vid­ual de­serves pri­va­cy and the right to live with dig­ni­ty, free from dis­crim­i­na­tion, crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and fear.

How­ev­er, it warned that the re­moval of the crim­i­nal pro­vi­sions does not mean the chal­lenges fac­ing LGBTQIA+ peo­ple have dis­ap­peared.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion point­ed to con­tin­u­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion, stig­ma and un­equal treat­ment in em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, hous­ing, health­care and ac­cess to pub­lic ser­vices.

It is call­ing for amend­ments to the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act to ex­plic­it­ly in­clude pro­tec­tions for LGBTQIA+ cit­i­zens against dis­crim­i­na­tion.

“Equal­i­ty is not a threat to any­one’s faith, fam­i­ly, or per­son­al be­liefs. Pro­tect­ing the rights of one group does not di­min­ish the rights of an­oth­er,” Maraj said.

Queer Cor­ner Caribbean has al­so joined the calls for wider re­form, de­scrib­ing the judg­ment as an im­por­tant mo­ment in the col­lec­tive strug­gle for hu­man rights, dig­ni­ty and free­dom.

In a Face­book state­ment, the or­gan­i­sa­tion recog­nised Jones’ courage in chal­leng­ing the leg­is­la­tion and paid trib­ute to gen­er­a­tions of ad­vo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers whose per­sis­tence helped bring the mat­ter be­fore the Privy Coun­cil.

But it warned that the re­moval of one dis­crim­i­na­to­ry law can­not be where the work ends.

Queer Cor­ner Caribbean is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to un­der­take a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of all ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion that dis­crim­i­nates against LGBTQIA+ peo­ple and move swift­ly to amend or re­peal pro­vi­sions deny­ing them equal rights, pro­tec­tions and op­por­tu­ni­ties based on their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty or sex char­ac­ter­is­tics.

It is al­so urg­ing the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion to act with ur­gency in ad­vanc­ing the nec­es­sary leg­isla­tive changes.

The group wants pro­tec­tions ex­tend­ed across em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, hous­ing, health­care and every oth­er area of pub­lic life.

It added: “The right to ex­ist with­out crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion must be ac­com­pa­nied by the right to live with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion, ex­clu­sion, or fear.”

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor al­so re­act­ed to the rul­ing, say­ing she was hap­py. She said, “Every hu­man be­ing de­serves to be treat­ed with de­cen­cy, dig­ni­ty and re­spect. We are all en­ti­tled to ba­sic hu­man rights, re­gard­less of our sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

“I wel­come the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing that pri­vate, con­sen­su­al sex­u­al re­la­tions be­tween adults of the same sex should not be crim­i­nalised. This is an im­por­tant step to­wards a Trinidad and To­ba­go where every­one can live with­out fear of dis­crim­i­na­tion or per­se­cu­tion.

“I al­so con­grat­u­late Ja­son Jones for his courage, ded­i­ca­tion and per­se­ver­ance in pur­su­ing this cause. His de­ter­mi­na­tion has helped se­cure an im­por­tant vic­to­ry for hu­man rights in our coun­try.”

‘Not in align­ment with di­vine coun­cil’

Mean­while, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has re­ferred Guardian Me­dia to his pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished po­si­tion on the Catholic Church’s teach­ing re­gard­ing the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of con­sen­su­al same-sex re­la­tions.

In a 2018 ar­ti­cle, Gor­don made it clear that the Church did not sup­port main­tain­ing crim­i­nal penal­ties against con­sent­ing adults, de­spite its moral po­si­tion on ho­mo­sex­u­al acts.

He said then: “Bug­gery is a se­ri­ous moral of­fence, but it should not put some­one in prison for 25 years.”

Gor­don al­so cit­ed the Holy See’s po­si­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions, which called for states to elim­i­nate crim­i­nal penal­ties against ho­mo­sex­u­al per­sons and avoid un­just dis­crim­i­na­tion.

How­ev­er, he main­tained that the Church’s op­po­si­tion to crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion did not sig­nal ac­cep­tance of same-sex mar­riage, which he said it would con­tin­ue to op­pose.

Pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Dr El­lis Bur­ris, said that across dif­fer­ent re­li­gious tra­di­tions, same-sex re­la­tions were viewed as in­con­sis­tent with di­vine prin­ci­ples.

“The fact re­mains that all the re­li­gious sys­tems, every re­li­gion, be it Chris­t­ian, Mus­lim, Hin­du, Ba­ha’i, Bud­dhist, Zoroas­tri­an, they all align to a con­di­tion where these be­hav­iours are not in align­ment with the di­vine coun­cil,” he said.

Asked whether he would use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­peal for calm and dis­cour­age con­dem­na­tion of LGBTQIA+ peo­ple, Bur­ris said the Ba­ha’i faith en­cour­ages prayers for those whose con­duct is con­sid­ered in­con­sis­tent with di­vine teach­ings.

He nev­er­the­less in­sist­ed that in­di­vid­u­als should not be con­demned.

“It’s not a con­dem­na­tion. It’s a re­quest for align­ment,” he said.