Judges reasoned that changing the law is the job of the island nation’s legislature, not its judiciary.
(LifeSiteNews) — An appeals court in the Caribbean Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has restored a previous law making consensual homosexual acts illegal.
In restoring the law, the court tempered it by reducing the maximum sentence from 25 years to five years.
The three-judge appeals court panel overturned a 2018 High Court ruling that had deemed portions of the country’s Sexual Offences Act to be unconstitutional.
The judges reasoned that changing the law is the job of the island nation’s legislature, not its judiciary.
“Judges cannot change the law,” the judges declared in their 196-page ruling. “We give effect to Parliament’s intention. Buggery (homosexual acts) remains a crime in Trinidad and Tobago … but is now punishable by a term of imprisonment of five years."
“It is, therefore, left to Parliament to repeal the criminalization of buggery and the related offense of gross indecency by legislation,” the judges asserted. “It is an emotive issue which engages vibrant discussion in the court of public opinion.”
“Parliament is ultimately responsible for ensuring that laws reflect the evolving standards of a democratic society,” they wrote. “That is their role and function. Any provisions found to be unconstitutional must be taken from the statute books by Parliament through legislative reform and not by judicial overreach.”
“In my judgment the clear intention here is for the existing law to continue to prevail. Buggery remains a crime in Trinidad and Tobago,” Appeals Court Justice Bereaux said, according to Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
With Trinidad and Tobago re-criminalizing homosexual acts, there are now 66 nations with laws against sodomy, according to an analysis by journalist Rob Salerno, an LGBTQ rights activist writing at Erasing76Crimes.com.
“The total had dropped to 64 before Trinidad & Tobago‘s Court of Appeal reinstated the country’s buggery and gross indecency laws in March 2025 and the West African nation of Mali, which formerly had no anti-LGBT law, adopted a homophobic new penal code in December 2024,” Salerno explained. “Before that, the most recent countries to have repealed their anti-gay laws were Namibia in Africa, Dominica in the Caribbean, Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, Singapore in Southeast Asia, Antigua & Barbuda, Saint Kitts & Nevis, and Barbados in the Caribbean, Bhutan in the Himalayas, and Gabon in central Africa.”
