San Juan, Mar 18 (EFE).– A Jamaican lawyer has filed a lawsuit in the Caribbean Court of Justice aimed at forcing the governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Belize to scrap immigration laws that bar the entry of gays and lesbians.

Legal representatives from Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Community made statements Wednesday at a hearing on the suit, court Registry supervisor Nandlal Hardial told Efe in a telephone interview.

Maurice Tomlinson, an attorney and LGBT rights activist, filed the suit in May 2013, Hardial said.

The Trinidad-based CCJ is the sole arbiter of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which established the Caribbean Community in 1973, and has exclusive jurisdiction over matters arising from violations of CARICOM statutes, including those guaranteeing freedom of movement.

Tomlinson says Trinidad and Tobago and Belize are violating the rights of LGBT citizens of CARICOM to move freely between member-states.

Twelve of the 15 CARICOM member-states are signatories of the CCJ: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. EFE