Peter Laverack appears in an historic case concerning the criminalisation of same-sex intimacy

Peter Laverack, today, appears before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in an historic case concerning the criminalisation of same-sex intimacy.

The appeal by Jason Jones, Peter’s client, against the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago marks the first time that the Privy Council has considered laws that criminalise homosexuality since England and then Britain started exporting these laws around the empire over 400 years ago.

Peter has worked on the case for 11 years, first advising Mr Jones and then as counsel.  After an initial victory at the High Court in Trinidad, which held the ‘buggery’ and ‘serious indecency’ laws unconstitutional, the Trinidadian Court of Appeal reversed that decision, holding that a ‘savings clause’ in the Constitution prevented the laws from being voided entirely.  The savings clause immunises from constitutional challenge laws that pre-date the Constitution of 1976, and thus the body of British colonial law including that which criminalised same-sex intimacy.

The appeal before the Privy Council concerns whether a 1986 Act that ‘repealed and replaced’ this colonial law dis-applies the savings clause in these proceedings.

Peter is led by Anand Ramlogan SC of the Trinidad Bar – with Amanda Clift-Matthews and Kate Temple-Mabe of the English Bar, and Ganesh Saroop of the Trinidad Bar – and is instructed by Travers Smith LLP.

Read more about this case in the news:

The Guardian

The Guardian World News