Austria - November 2023

Justice Minister Alma Zadić introduced a draft law for the rehabilitation and compensation of individuals persecuted or convicted for consensual homosexual acts. The government has allocated approximately EUR 33 million for this initiative. The legislation targets those convicted under the previous legal code, which had decriminalized homosexuality in 1971 but still targeted gay men and treated homosexual and heterosexual relationships differently. These specific legal provisions subjected gay individuals to convictions for acts that would have been lawful if they were heterosexual. The Constitutional Court only repealed the last of these provisions in 2002, but the repeal did not clear criminal records, impacting those that were convicted.

Sources: Euronews, Der Standard