I've raised £50000 to Fight the APPEAL by the Attorney General of Trinidad & Tobago to overturn the 2018 High Court ruling freeing LGBTQ+ people from hate.
Organised by Jason Jones
Story
On April 12th 2018, my small legal team of 5 & myself won a landmark High Court judgment in Trinidad & Tobago which decriminalised all adult consensual same-sex Intimacy and freed over 100,000 people from the tyranny & fear of these draconian homophobic laws.
These laws originated from our British Colonial past, and were then hardened and the JAIL TERM INCREASED by TWENTY YEARS by the INDEPENDENT REPUBLICAN Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1980s! Sections 13 & 16 of the Sexual Offences Act criminalised both Lesbians & Gay men with up to 25 years in jail for adult consensual sex.
After my victory in 2018, the Attorney General & the State decided to APPEAL this decision and are now spending MILLIONS of taxpayers' dollars to overturn this victory for human rights.
27 Laws discriminate against LGBTQ+ citizens!
My legal team all work for free for this case, BUT I alone am responsible for all of the out of pocket expenses accrued.
YES £50,000.00 sounds a lot!
but £20,000.00 of that goes towards paying the T&T Law Association fees for my lead counsel to represent me in Court. The T&T Law Association are making us pay their law practice fees for the last 6 years even though we were NOT practicing law in T&T and were only waiting on an Appeal Court hearing date!
And with the cost of living crisis, all of the expenses for this case ( Flights, accommodation, admin etc for the team) have almost doubled since I won in 2018. I do all of this work on my own and can only move forward now with your help and I have just over four months to raise these funds and pay these bills BEFORE we appear in Court in early October.
Your donation will support this important work that has an enormous impact across the World!
My 2018 judgment was used in the successful decriminalisation judgements of INDIA, ANTIGUA, St. KITTS/NEVIS & BARBADOS thereby supporting equality for over 75 MILLION LGBTQ+ people!
How T&T played a role in LGBTQ+ decriminalisation of India!
With new draconian homophobic laws being passed in Uganda, Russia, Indonesia, Brunei and others, more than ever before we must keep up the fight against State sanctioned homophobic bigotry.
