 He was appointed a Bencher of the Inn in 1993.Bratza was appointed Junior Counsel to the Crown at Common Law in 1979 and took silk as Queen's Counsel in 1988.He acted in 1981 for the UK Government at the European Court of Human Rights against Jeffrey Dudgeon who complained successfully that the law in Northern Ireland, which made homosexual acts between consenting adult males a criminal offence, was a breach of the Convention.