At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have un­til May this year, to file an ap­peal on the land­mark judgment decriminalising sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween con­sent­ing male adults.

The matter is to be heard in the High Court lat­er this year.

The appeal came up for a case man­age­ment hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain on Monday before Ap­pel­late Judge Gre­go­ry Smith.

A date for the hear­ing of the sub­stan­tive ap­peal will be set af­ter the record, which in­cludes High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad’s judgment in the case as well as the sub­mis­sions that were made be­fore him, is filed.

The state has not sought an ur­gent hear­ing of the case.

In 2017, Trinidad-born gay rights ac­tivist Ja­son Jones filed the law­suit, in which he chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which crim­i­nalised bug­gery and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy even be­tween con­sent­ing adults.

Mr. Jones, who is a res­i­dent of the Unit­ed King­dom, claimed that the long-stand­ing leg­is­la­tion con­tra­vened his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pri­va­cy and free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion and was in di­rect con­tra­dic­tion to this coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights oblig­a­tions.

In his 58-page judgment de­liv­ered on April 12 last year, Justice Rampersad agreed that the leg­is­la­tion con­tra­vened Mr. Jones’ rights to pri­va­cy and fam­i­ly life.

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged claims from State at­tor­neys that the leg­is­la­tion has nev­er been en­forced against con­sent­ing adults, Justice Rampersad said that did not mit­i­gate the im­pact on Mr. Jones and oth­er ho­mo­sex­u­als, who lived in fear of be­ing brand­ed crim­i­nals based on their ex­pres­sion of love and af­fec­tion.

He sug­gest­ed by al­low­ing it to re­main as valid law, par­lia­ment helped to cul­ti­vate so­ci­ety’s ho­mo­pho­bic views on the is­sue.

Justice Ram­per­sad did not im­me­di­ate­ly strike down the leg­is­la­tion as it would have meant that non-con­sen­su­al anal in­ter­course (anal rape) would be le­gal.

In­stead, in September last year, he mod­i­fied the leg­is­la­tion to in­tro­duce an el­e­ment of con­sent.

While the gov­ern­ment has tak­en a neu­tral stance on the is­sue, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris al-Rawi has stat­ed that gov­ern­ment in­tends to ap­peal the judgment to the coun­try’s high­est Ap­pel­late Court, the Privy Coun­cil, to re­ceive a com­pre­hen­sive ju­di­cial de­ter­mi­na­tion on the con­tro­ver­sial issue.