Sex does not diminish with age, court rules

JUDGES in Portugal were guilty of sexual discrimination in a medical compensation case when they decided that the importance of sex diminished with the age of a woman, Europe’s human rights court ruled in a judgment published yesterday.

Maria Morais, a 50-year-old Portuguese woman with two children, claimed that medical negligence during botched gynaecological surgery at a Portuguese hospital in 1995 left her unable to have normal sexual relations. She won her compensation case for physical and mental suffering, but the hospital then won a 2013 appeal that cut the payout by around one third.

Judges in Lisbon had argued that sex was not as important because of her age. The three-judge panel – made up of two men and a woman – were all over 50, according to Vitor Ribeiro, Morais’s lawyer. The European Court of Human Rights sided with Morais, saying Portuguese judges were guilty of “prejudices”.