Boris Ottokar Dittrich (; born 21 July 1955) is a Dutch politician of the Democrats 66 (D66) party, jurist, author and human rights activist. He has been a Member of the Senate since 11 June 2019.
Dittrich's father came to the Netherlands as a political asylum seeker from Czechoslovakia in 1948, he became a professor in Eastern-European history at the University of Utrecht.
Boris Dittrich grew up in Utrecht and went to law school at Leiden University, working as a lawyer in Amsterdam from 1981 till 1989 and later as a judge in the district court of Alkmaar from 1989 till 1994. Dittrich is married to the Dutch/Israeli sculptor Jehoshua Rozenman and is also an activist.
Career
Parliamentary career
In 1994 Dittrich became a Member of Parliament representing the social-liberal party D66.
Boris Dittrich rose to become party leader of D66 in 2003 after Thom de Graaf stepped down because of disappointing results in the 2003 general elections.
Dittrich negotiated the participation of D66 in the Dutch coalition government Balkenende II with the Christian-democratic CDA and the other liberal party VVD.
Dittrich decided not to become a minister but to remain party leader in parliament in order to monitor whether the new government would execute the coalition contract. The new government introduced major reforms to which the staggering Dutch economy responded positively.
Dittrich was strongly against Dutch military participation in the Afghan province of Uruzgan and he tried to persuade the Dutch government and parliament not to get involved in the war. However, when the Dutch cabinet (including his own D66 ministers) decided to follow the American lead under President Bush, backed by 75% of the Dutch parliament, he decided to take political responsibility and stepped down as leader of D66 on 3 February 2006. A few months later D66 withdrew its support from the government after 3 years because of a dispute with the Dutch minister Rita Verdonk (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration) about the way she handled the issue of the Dutch passport of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. D66 and the minister had had many clashes before because of her harsh policy towards asylum seekers and immigrants. This withdrawal caused the fall of the government and new elections were announced for November 2006.
Dittrich has been one of the most productive Dutch parliamentarians since the parliament's founding in 1838. He is the first member ever to have drafted four different private bills that have successfully become law. Dittrich took the initiative for laws against stalking; for the rights of victims to speak during a criminal trial; for abolishing the time limits on prosecution of crimes like murder and manslaughter; and he wrote the law to fix book prices in order to protect smaller bookshops, authors and customers.
During his career, Dittrich became a national figure for his initiatives on issues like same-sex marriage, euthanasia, legalization of specific forms of sex work, and decriminalizing the use of soft drugs. These are issues that have made the Netherlands 'leading' when it comes to this kind of legislation in the world.
Dittrich was the first openly gay Member of Parliament who focused on LGBT rights (Evelien Eshuis from the Dutch communist party being the first openly lesbian MP who worked for LGBT rights in the 1980s.) In 1994 he proposed to introduce marriage equality to the dismay of the Dutch LGBT organization COC. The group later changed course. Dittrich and two colleagues embarked on a long campaign. In spite of fierce opposition from religious groups, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to introduce marriage equality. The argument often used against Dittrich that ‘the Netherlands will become a legal island in the world’ by supporting marriage equality proved to be wrong. As of June 2019, same sex couples can marry in 27 countries in the world: the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Uruguay, Iceland, France, the United Kingdom (minus Northern Ireland), Ireland, the United States, Luxembourg, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Malta, Finland, Australia, Germany, Austria and Taiwan. About 1 billion people (from an estimated world population of 7 billion) live in countries with marriage equality.
He is a strong advocate for human rights and represented the Dutch parliament on numerous occasions at meetings in the United Nations. Dittrich was member of the Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) and was also vice president of Liberal International until October 2007.