UK Privy Council overrules Trinidad and Tobago gay sex law

A London court has overturned a Trinidad and Tobago law criminalizing consensual sexual relations between male same-sex couples. As a result of the colonial legacy, it is the independent country's last court of appeal.

A man from Trinidad and Tobago has won a legal appeal lasting almost a decade in the last court of appeal available to him — the judicial committee of the Privy Council in former colonial power Britain. Jason Jones, a gay man born in Trinidad and Tobago, had challenged the Caribbean nation's Sexual Offences Act outlawing consensusal sex between adult males, saying that it breached his fundamental rights under the country's constitution.

"To discriminate against somebody simply because of who they choose to love is simply ridiculous," Jones told the Associated Press after Tuesday's judgment was rendered. The Privy Council in London is the final court of appeal for some Commonwealth countries including Trinidad and Tobago, although that issue was already contentious in some circles prior to Tuesday's ruling.