A lecturer sues his state and wins

On 26 October 1988, David Norris achieved in Strasbourg what he had been fighting for for eleven years. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland's blanket ban on sexual acts between men violated the right to respect for private life. The judgment was passed by eight votes to six.

Norris taught literature at Trinity College Dublin and was known as an expert on James Joyce. In 1977 he had brought an action before the Irish High Court against two laws dating from British rule. They were from 1861 and 1885; Oscar Wilde had been convicted under the later one. Norris lost at first in the High Court and, in 1983, by three votes to two in the Supreme Court. Its Chief Justice pointed to the "Christian character" of the Irish state. Norris was represented by the lawyer and senator Mary Robinson.

Before the court in Strasbourg, the Irish government argued that Norris had never been prosecuted and was therefore not personally affected. The judges rejected this argument. As long as the provisions remained in force and the authorities did not expressly rule out their application, he had to reckon with prosecution. That threat alone was enough. The court thus built on the case of Jeff Dudgeon, who had successfully challenged the corresponding ban in Northern Ireland seven years earlier.

At first, no change in the law followed the ruling. Norris and organisations such as the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network kept up the political pressure for years. Only in the summer of 1993 did the Irish parliament repeal the old bans and introduce an equal age of consent. The law was signed by President Mary Robinson – the very woman who had represented Norris as his lawyer.

By then Norris himself was a member of the Senate. The literature lecturer who had taken his own state to court had become one of Ireland's best-known public voices.