Euan Sutherland

Who is Euan Sutherland?

Euan Sutherland is an openly gay activist who, with Chris Morris, successfully challenged the British Government in the European Court of Human Rights and secured an equal age of consent for gay men.

When male homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967, the age of consent was set at 21. It was lowered to 18 in 1994, but Sutherland and Morris took their case to Europe to demand it be reduced further to 16, the same age as it is for heterosexuals. They invoked Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantee the right to a private life and protection from discrimination.

Opposition to the campaign was led by Conservative peer Baroness Young and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, among others.

In July 1997, the European Commission of Human Rights found that the existence of different ages of consent was discriminatory and that no valid grounds existed to justify that discrimination. They therefore found that the age of consent for homosexual acts should be lowered to 16. In arriving at their conclusion, the commission cited their reasoning in the previous cases, Dudgeon v. United Kingdom and Norris v. Ireland.

In response to the commission's findings, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw agreed with Morris and Sutherland that a Bill would be proposed to Parliament in the summer of 1998 to reduce the age of consent for homosexual acts to 16. The Commission approved their 'friendly settlement'.