T&T ac­tivist for LGBT+ rights Ja­son Jones will be join­ing with UK Par­lia­men­tar­i­an Crispin Blunt MP, the Chair of the All-Par­ty Par­lia­men­tary Group (APPG) on Glob­al LGBT+ Rights, to hold dis­cus­sions at their col­lab­o­ra­tive event, “The Privy Coun­cil v LGBT+ and Hu­man Rights: A Pan­el Dis­cus­sion on the role of the Privy Coun­cil as Supreme Court of the Caribbean” on Mon­day 1st No­vem­ber 2021, at 6 pm (UK time) in PCH meet­ing room ‘O’, as well as streamed on­line.

A re­lease from event or­gan­is­ers state the event takes place just ahead of the Privy Coun­cil meet­ing on the Gen­er­al Sav­ings Law Clause on the 2nd and 3rd of No­vem­ber 2021.

This case, al­though nom­i­nal­ly about the death penal­ty, has sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for the progress of LGBT+ rights in the Caribbean and Com­mon­wealth, as it al­so hinges on Gen­er­al Sav­ings Law Clause of the con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

The sav­ings clause al­so pro­tects the laws that dis­crim­i­nate against LGBTQ+ cit­i­zens. The High Court of Jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go ruled on April 12, 2018, that the coun­try’s laws crim­i­nal­iz­ing same-sex in­ti­ma­cy be­tween con­sent­ing adults are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. The 2018 vic­to­ry at the High Court can be over­turned by the T&T Ap­peal Court and/or the Privy Coun­cil if they de­cide that the laws are “saved” by Sec­tion 6.  This clause was held by the Privy Coun­cil (5 to 4) in Boyce v the Queen [2004] UKPC 32 and Matthew v Trinidad and To­ba­go [2004] UKPC 33 to pro­vide ab­solute im­mu­ni­ty to all colo­nial laws in force at the time of In­de­pen­dence from con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge for breach of the fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms pro­vi­sions of the new con­sti­tu­tions.

Since 2004, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana have re­signed to the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Privy Coun­cil and adopt­ed the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice as fi­nal court of ap­peal.  In 2018, the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice re­versed for Bar­ba­dos the de­ci­sion in Boyce and Matthew in the case of Ner­vais v Regi­na [2018] CCJ 19 (AJ).  It did like­wise for Guyana in McE­wan v Guyana [2018] CCJ 30 (AJ).  It is on­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go that re­mains bound by Boyce and Matthew.  The Sav­ings Clause is anath­e­ma to a mod­ern hu­mane so­ci­ety and we ex­pect the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil to mod­ernise its in­ter­pre­ta­tion and re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion in a mod­ern so­ci­ety and its re­la­tion­ship to hu­mane judge­ments in law.”

Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, Pro­fes­sor of Law at UWI of­fered the fol­low­ing on the mat­ter: "I have long held the view that our vi­sion of the sav­ing law clause is not on­ly anachro­nis­tic, but in­im­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment of a just so­ci­ety ground­ed in rights for all, which sure­ly was not the in­tent of the framers of our in­de­pen­dent con­sti­tu­tions. As such, our courts must be coura­geous enough to in­ter­pret it pur­po­sive­ly, so as to give life to its true mean­ing and ra­tio­nale, paving the way for a more en­light­ened fu­ture for all Caribbean peo­ples."

The pan­el dis­cus­sion, “The Privy Coun­cil v LGBT + and Hu­man Rights: A Pan­el Dis­cus­sion on the role of the Privy Coun­cil as Supreme Court of the Caribbean”, is sched­uled for Mon­day 1 No­vem­ber 2021 at 6 pm (UK time), and will be streamed on­line from the UK Par­lia­ment web­site.

The pan­el of ex­perts is com­prised of:

●   Ja­son Jones – Hu­man Rights De­fend­er from T&T & claimant in a le­gal chal­lenge against his coun­try’s dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bug­gery laws

●   Anand Be­har­ry­lal QC – Bar­ris­ter and con­sti­tu­tion­al law ex­pert from T&T

●   Dr Leonar­do Raznovich – LGBT+ Bar­ris­ter & Hu­man Rights aca­d­e­m­ic, Of­fi­cer of the Di­ver­si­ty and In­clu­sion Coun­cil of the In­ter­na­tion­al Bar As­so­ci­a­tion

●   The Rt Hon. The Lord Her­bert of South Downs CBE – The UK Spe­cial En­voy on LGBT Rights and Chair of the Glob­al Equal­i­ty Cau­cus

●   Crispin Blunt MP – Mem­ber of UK Par­lia­ment and Chair of APPG on Glob­al LGBT+ Rights