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Thu 12 Dec 2009Underage sex law has gender bias, court told
A “SO-CALLED Romeo and Juliet” law permitting prosecution of a boy over allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girl when he was aged 15 is “crude and old-fashioned” gender-based discrimination, it was claimed before the High Court yesterday.
The Oireachtas had justified the law on the basis of a “patronising view” that girls must be protected from boys who are the guilty parties, Gerard Hogan argued yesterday when opening the boy’s challenge to the 2006 law.
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