File 17 - David Norris & National Gay Federation for Ireland v Ireland + Norris v Senator Doherty et al.

1 SubSubSubSeries, 31 files

David Norris, scholar, Senator and civil rights activist, took a case to the High Court in 1977 seeking a declaration that the laws of 1861 and 1885 which criminalised homosexual conduct were not in force since the enactment of the Constitution of Ireland (Article 50 of the Constitution provides that laws enacted before the Constitution that are inconsistent with it would no longer be in force). The Irish courts ruled that Norris's right to privacy was not violated by the Offences against the Person Act 1861 (criminalising "buggery") and the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (criminalising "gross indecency").

Norris appealed the Irish court's decision to the European Court of Human Rights in 1983. The Court passed judgment in 1988, deciding in Norris's favour on grounds similar to those of its 1981 decision in Dudgeon v United Kingdom. The laws impugned by the judgment were eventually repealed by the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, 1993.

Material relating to this case, for which Mary Robinson (MR) acted as Junior and subsequently Senior Counsel, is arranged across 27 files. An additional subsubsubseries relates to a separate case for which MR was involved: David Norris v Seán Doherty (Ceann Comhairle [speaker of the lower house of Irish parliament]) and 11 other (members of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges) and Seanad Éireann.

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02/02/2023
05/11/2024