Caricom nationals who are homosexual are not barred from entering T&T, despite immigration laws to contrary. So said acting Chief Immigration Officer Gerry Downes as he gave evidence on Tuesday in a landmark Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) lawsuit brought by Jamaican gay rights activist Maurice Tomlinson, who is challenging this country and Belize’s anti-gay immigration laws.
While being questioned by Tomlinson’s lawyer Douglas Mendes, SC, at the CCJ headquarters, Henry Street, Port-of-Spain, the senior public servant explained that his department had formulated an unwritten policy to circumvent local legislation. “There are practical challenges in identifying a homosexual so we do not enquire as to sexual orientation,” Downes said.
While he could not say when the policy was implemented or by whom, Downes said its existence was proved by the fact that there were no known cases in T&T’s post-Independence history where entry was denied to a visitor based on his or her sexual orientation. Mendes took issue with Downes’s claim as he suggested that the policy offered no protection to his client and others like him as it could be subject to change so long as the discriminatory legislation was still in existence.
“This is a practice of dubious legal validity. If there is a policy why don’t you amend the law to remove the prohibition,” Mendes said in an obvious jab at parliamentarians. In response to Mendes’s questioning on the case of openly gay British singer Elton John, who had to obtain a special permit for his performance in Tobago in 2007, Downes said this rule only applied to non-Caricom nationals.
Downes also dismissed Mendes’s criticism of a case involving a transgender woman from Belize, who experienced issues with immigration officials on a visit to T&T, as he said that was only because there were obvious differences between her and the picture in her passport. Belize’s Director of Immigration Maria Marin was present for Tuesday’s hearing and testified that her country had a similar policy as described by Downes.
As she referred to a case in 1998, when a cruise ship with approximately 700 gays came to Belize and all the individuals were allowed into the country, Marin said: “The policy is not to prosecute anyone because of their sexual orientation. The person would be allowed in. If they engage in homosexual activity for profit, then they are prosecuted.” Judgement has been reserved to a date to be announced.