The Supreme Court overturned Austria’s homosexuality law on Monday banning male homosexual relations between adults and young people aged under 18.
Paragraph 209, saying homosexual relations between males aged over 19 with those aged under 18 were illegal, violated the principle of equality, the court said.
The age of consent for heterosexual and lesbian relations in Austria is 14.
The ruling gave parliament until the end of next February to pass a new law.
The ruling by the Constitutional Court said the present law was not sensible seeing that as a consequence, a homosexual partnership that was initially within the law suddenly became illegal when the older partner passed his 19th birthday.
The court said it did not cast doubt on the aim of parliament to protect young people from premature or exploitative sexual relations.
Paragraph 209 was one of these protective measures.
Therefore it had not been abolished immediately, and parliament had been given time to work out suitable alternative legislation.
Up until now, Austria has been one of the few countries in western Europe where the age of consent is not the same for everyone.
Criticism of this came from human rights organisations
including Amnesty International. – Sapa-DPA