Edward Brongersma

Edward Brongersma ( August 31, 1911 in Haarlem , the Netherlands - April 22, 1998 in Bloemendaal / Overveen, the Netherlands) was a Dutch politician and doctor of law .

For several years he was a member of the Dutch Senate for the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) and chairman of the Senate's judicial committee. He was best known as a defender of pedophiles' rights and an advocate for the liberalization of legislation on public morality.

Early life

Brongersma was born in Haarlem, the son of an ophthalmologist. He studied law at the University of Amsterdam (1931-1935) and received his degree in 1935. From 1935 to 1937 he worked in a law firm in Haarlem, while working on his dissertation on the Portuguese Constitution of 1933 and the corporatism of him admired António de Oliveira Salazar . In 1940 he graduated with cum laude in law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen . His dissertation on the corporate state in Portugal was published as a book and reprinted several times.

Career

After the Second World War , he made a career as a lawyer and politician, as well as a prolific writer. From 1940 to 1950 he worked as a lawyer in Amsterdam and between 1946 and 1950 he worked in the editorial department of the Dutch legal journal, Nederlands Juristenblad . In 1946 he was elected to the Dutch Senate for the Dutch Workers' Party ( PvdA ). His term lasted from 1946 to 1950, and later he had a second term from 1963 to 1977. During the same period (1946-1950) he was a member of the provincial states of North Holland and the Heemstede City Council for the party.

His career was cut short in 1950 when he was arrested for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old man. At that time, the consent age for homosexual contacts was 21 years based on Article 248bis [Dutch Criminal Code]. Brongersma was sentenced to 11 months in prison.

He then continued his career as a journalist and critic in the 1950s. From 1953 to 1956 he was a board member of the PvdA in the province of Utrecht . In 1956 he was recruited for a four-year term as director of community work in Haarlem. In 1959 he was re-entered into the Dutch Bar Register. He resumed his legal practice and worked as a lawyer until 1980.

From 1960 to 1967 he was a professor at the Criminological Institute of the University of Utrecht , where he worked very closely with the law professor W. Pompe. In 1963, at the request of the Dutch PvdA, he returned to a second term in the Senate, which lasted until his resignation in 1977. From 1969 to 1977 he was chairman and spokesman of the Senate Standing Committee on Justice. For his political service he was made Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion on April 29, 1975 . He served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1969 to 1977.

Brongersma was best known for his publications and his advocacy of more liberal moral code, a subject in which he was very interested. Because of his expertise, as a member of the Senate in 1971, he played an important role in the abolition of Article 248bis of the Dutch Penal Code, the same article on which he was convicted in 1950. The age of consent for homosexual contacts was then reduced from 21 to 16 years (as with heterosexual contacts). He advocated lowering the age of consent even further and giving young people more freedom to enter into sexual relationships.

During his life he collected a huge number of scientific and scientific publications on these subjects, consisting of a library and personal archives. In 1979 he donated it to a foundation that bears his name, the object of which, as its statutes say, is "the promotion of scientific studies and publications in the field of sexual relations between adults and adolescents". In 1992 the goal was expanded to “promote the sexual-emotional health of children and adolescents”.

After resigning from the Dutch Senate in 1977, Brongersma devoted himself entirely to the goals of his foundation. At that time he wrote his magnum opus "Loving Boys" (published in two parts, 1987 and 1990) while he continued to expand his collections.

death

Brongersma died of voluntary euthanasia in 1998. His health failed and he became lonely as his best friends died one by one. The social upheaval that began in the 1980s in response to the sexual revolution of the 1970s made him weary of life. Originally, his ideas to liberalize laws on public morality and pedophile rights were well received both in the Netherlands and internationally, but gradually he received more social criticism. After his death, there were discussions in the Netherlands about whether people who were tired of life could end their lives with the help of a doctor. Flip Sutorius , the Overveen doctor who helped Brongersma in his chosen death, was persecuted but not punished. The judgment was finally confirmed in 2002 by the High Council of the Netherlands .

After his death, there was great excitement when material that was considered child pornography was seized from his collections . The laws passed in 1996 made it unjust to “have such images on hand”.

Its entire socio-sexological collections as well as its private archive have been archived in the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam. The Board of Directors of the Foundation continues Brongersma's work.

Fonts (selection)

• Loving boys . Two volumes. Elmhurst, 1986, 1990

literature

• Lodi Leeuwenberg: Edward Brongersma , in: Volkmar Sigusch , Günter Grau (Hrsg.): Personenlexikon der Sexualforschung . Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2009 ISBN 978-3-593-39049-9 , pp. 83f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Edward Brongersma in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Law bank in zaak-Brongersma: Ook zonder ziekte hulp bij zelfdoding"
2. ↑ "Hof veroordeelt Sutorius in zaak-Brongersma"