The Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the maximum age difference of three years set in the Penal Code for sexual relations between an adult and a minor aged 14 or 15 leads to disproportionate situations.
According to the Criminal Code, a minor aged 14 or 15 may consent to sexual relations with an adult provided that the age difference does not exceed three years. The aim is to strike a balance between protecting minors from sexual abuse and respecting their sexual autonomy: the maximum age difference of three years is intended to ensure that both parties have a relatively comparable level of maturity.
The Court was asked by a criminal court to rule on a specific case. It found that a person who, on their 18th birthday, has consensual sex with a minor aged 14 years and 11 months is committing an offence, even if the two people had been having consensual sex for months, for which they could not be punished.
The Court concluded that it was disproportionate to set the maximum age difference at three years. It observed that such inconsistent situations could not arise if the age difference were four years, or if the three-year difference did not coexist with the absence of a maximum age difference for sexual relations between minors aged 14 and over.
In short, the condition that there must be an age difference of no more than three years for a minor who has reached the age of 14, but not yet 16, to consent to sexual relations with an adult is discriminatory, the Court concluded.
