Northern Ireland

The appellant was separated from his wife, who was living in her parents’ house. The appellant broke into the house where his wife was residing and attempted to rape her. The question posed to the House of Lords was whether a wife has impliedly consented to sexual intercourse through the force of marriage. The House of Lords held that there is no supposed marital exemption in rape in the common law. The House of Lords decision is applicable in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 

The Sex Discrimination Order (Northern Ireland) 1976, as amended, prohibits discrimination (direct and indirect), including harassment, on the ground of sex, in the employment, education, and provision of goods and services sectors. Its amendments include the extension of protections to gender reassignment (Part II, sections 4A and 4B). 

The Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 established rape as a statutory offence in place of the common law crime. Only a person with a penis can commit rape (Art. 5). All of the other sexual offences criminalize non-consensual acts (assault by penetration, sexual assault, and causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent) that could be committed by women and gender-neutral persons, but the law uses only male pronouns to refer to the perpetrator (Arts. 6-8).

Under common law in Northern Ireland, rape was an offense covering only vaginal intercourse committed by a man against a woman.  The Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 provided a definition of rape as “any act of non-consensual intercourse by a man with a person.” 

The UK Parliament, in response to a the European Court of Human Right’s decision in Dudgeon v United Kingdom, extended the decriminalization of male homosexual acts (which took effect in 1967 for the rest of the UK) to Northern Ireland.  This order came into effect on December 8, 1982.

The regulations implementing these provisions were signed on December 19, 2020, and came into force on January 13, 2020. The regulations generally enable civil same-sex marriage and also non same-sex civil partnership.  Specifically, Part 2 allows same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland; allows consular and armed forces marriages overseas to be formed under Northern Ireland law; and treats as marriages in Northern Ireland same-sex marriages formed in other parts of the United Kingdom or abroad overseas which were previously treated as civil partnerships in Northern Ireland.

The Regulations came into force on 31 March 2020.  They regulate abortions in Northern Ireland.  They follow the repeal, by section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019, of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861(1).