Right To Privacy/Family Life

A couple of days ago the European Court of Human Rights decided a strange case, Stübing v Germany (no. 43547/08), judgment. An adult brother and sister engaged in consensual sexual intercourse, a punishable criminal offense in Germany and about a half of other European countries. The brother, applicant in this case, got a prison sentence. The other half of European countries do not criminalize adult incest. The issue before the Court was whether such a criminalization was consistent with the right to private and family life in Article 8 ECHR. The Court said that it was. For analysis, see this excellent post by Daniel Sokol on the UK Human Rights Blog. What's so fascinating about this case is that it is ultimately hard to pinpoint the moral, and hence legal justification for punishing adult incest, other than for the 'yuck' factor, i.e. a basically emotional response to the violation of a taboo. And this raises the specter of the justification for pure morals legislation generally, as e.g. with regard to…