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S.L. v. Austria was a case in the European Court of Human Rights concerning the age of consent. Austrian law, under Article 209 of the Austrian Criminal Code, provided for higher age of consent for male homosexual relations than for other (heterosexual or female homosexual) relations. The judgment of the court was delivered on 9 January 2003. [1]
Article 209 of the Austrian Criminal Code set the age of consent for male homosexual sex at 18 years, 4 years higher than the age of consent for heterosexual and lesbian sex, which was instead set at 14.
In 1996, the Australian Parliament had rejected an attempt to repeal the Article by a tied vote of 91 to 91.
The complaint was brought to the Court by a man who chose to remain anonymous, who was referred to in the Court's proceedings as "S.L.". S.L. was born in 1981 and reported himself to have been sure of his homosexuality at the age of 15. He lived in a rural area where homosexuality is still taboo, and suffered from the fact that he could not live his homosexuality openly and – until he reached the age of 18 – could not enter into any fulfilling sexual relationship with an adult partner without having a fear of exposing that person to criminal prosecution.
A male person who after attaining the age of nineteen fornicates with a person of the same sex who has attained the age of fourteen years but not the age of eighteen years shall be sentenced to imprisonment for six months to five years.
— Article 209 of the Austrian Criminal Code (in the version in force at the material time).
On 2 June 2002, Article 209 was declared unconstitutional by the Austrian Constitutional Court; on 10 July 2002, it was repealed by Parliament, which introduced a new provision (Article 207b) penalizing sexual acts with a person under sixteen years of age if that person was for certain reasons not mature enough to understand the meaning of the act and the offender took advantage of this immaturity or if the person under sixteen years of age was in a predicament and the offender took advantage of that situation. Article 207b applied equally to all adults, regardless of sex or sexual orientation.
The Court ruled unanimously that the inequality of age of consent constituted a violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 8, and also unanimously ruled that there was no need to examine the complaints lodged under Article 8 alone.
It was not disputed before the Court that the case falls within the ambit of Article 8. The development following the judgment of the Constitutional Court did not affect the applicant’s status as a victim. As regards the violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8, the Court found no decisive difference between the present case and Sutherland v. United Kingdom .
The Court examined whether there was an objective and reasonable justification why young men in the fourteen-to-eighteen-age bracket needed protection against any sexual relationship with adult men, while young women in the same age bracket did not need such protection against relations with either adult men or women. It came to the conclusion that to the extent that Article 209 of the Criminal Code embodied predisposed bias on the part of a heterosexual majority against the homosexual minority, these negative attitudes could not themselves provide sufficient justification for the differential treatment anymore.
The Buggery Act 1533, formally An Acte for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie, was an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed during the reign of Henry VIII.
The United States has inherited sodomy laws which constitutionally outlawed a variety of sexual acts that are deemed to be illegal, illicit, unlawful, unnatural and/or immoral from the colonial-era based laws in the 17th century. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many sodomy-related statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes, in some cases even including acts between married persons.
Paragraph 175 was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made sexual relations between males a crime, and in early revisions the provision also criminalized bestiality as well as forms of prostitution and underage sexual abuse. Overall, around 140,000 men were convicted under the law. The law had always been controversial and inspired the first homosexual movement, which called for its repeal.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) rights in Austria have advanced significantly in the 21st century, and are now considered generally progressive. Both male and female forms of same-sex sexual activity are legal in Austria. Registered partnerships were introduced in 2010, giving same-sex couples some of the rights of marriage. Stepchild adoption was legalised in 2013, while full joint adoption was legalised by the Constitutional Court of Austria in 2016. On 5 December 2017, the Austrian Constitutional Court decided to legalise same-sex marriage, and the ruling went into effect on 1 January 2019.
The Bolton 7 were a group of gay and bisexual men who were convicted on 12 January 1998 in the United Kingdom before Judge Michael Lever at Bolton Crown Court of the offences of gross indecency under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Although gay sex was partially decriminalised by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, they were all convicted under section 13 of the 1956 Act because more than two men had sex together, which was still illegal. One of the participants was also six months under the statutory age of consent for male gay sex: at the time, such an age was set at 18, while the heterosexual and lesbian age of consent was instead set at 16.
X. v. the United Kingdom was a 1978 case before the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the Sexual Offences Act 1956 in the United Kingdom. The case addressed privacy protections and age of consent laws for homosexuals.
The legal age of consent for sexual activity varies by jurisdiction across Asia. The specific activity engaged in or the gender of participants can also be relevant factors. Below is a discussion of the various laws dealing with this subject. The highlighted age refers to an age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another who is also at or above that age. Other variables, such as homosexual relations or close in age exceptions, may exist, and are noted when relevant.
The ages of consent for sexual activity vary from age 15 to 18 across Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Oceania. The specific activity and the gender of its participants is also addressed by the law. The minimum age is the age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another person of minimum age. Close in age exceptions may exist and are noted where applicable. In Vanuatu the homosexual age of consent is set higher at 18, while the heterosexual age of consent is 15. Same sex sexual activity is illegal at any age for males in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Samoa, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu; it is outlawed for both men and women in the Solomon Islands. In all other places the age of consent is independent of sexual orientation or gender.
The age of consent varies by jurisdiction across Europe. The ages of consent – hereby meaning the age from which one is deemed able to consent to having sex with anyone else of consenting age or above – are between 14 and 18. The vast majority of countries set their ages in the range of 14 to 16; only four countries, Cyprus (17), Ireland (17), Turkey (18), and the Vatican City (18), set an age of consent higher than 16.
In North America, the legal age of consent relating to sexual activity varies by jurisdiction.
The age of consent in Africa for sexual activity varies by jurisdiction across the continent, codified in laws which may also stipulate the specific activities that are permitted or the gender of participants for different ages. Other variables may exist, such as close-in-age exemptions.
The age of consent for sexual activity refers to an age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another who is of the same age or older. This age varies by jurisdiction across South America, codified in laws which may also stipulate the specific activities that are permitted or the gender of participants for different ages. Other variables may exist, such as close-in-age exemptions.
Laws regarding incest vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Besides legal prohibitions, at least some forms of incest are also socially taboo or frowned upon in most cultures around the world.
This is a list of important events relating to the LGBT community from 1801 to 1900. The earliest published studies of lesbian activity were written in the early 19th century.
Toonen v. Australia was a landmark human rights complaint brought before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) by Tasmanian resident Nicholas Toonen in 1994. The case resulted in the repeal of Australia's last sodomy laws when the Committee held that sexual orientation was included in the antidiscrimination provisions as a protected status under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood and defined by many courts and jurisdictions to include any or all forms of sexual acts that are illegal, illicit, unlawful, unnatural and immoral. Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, manual sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced to target against sexual activities between individuals of the opposite sex, and have mostly been used to target against sexual activities between individuals of the same sex.
In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Antigua and Barbuda may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ citizens.
Geldenhuys v National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down as unconstitutional a law which set the age of consent at 19 for homosexual sex but only 16 for heterosexual sex.
Article 365 of the Sri Lankan Penal Code criminalizes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and provides for a penalty of up to ten years in prison.
