My husband of 17 years is a judge. Recently multiple people have come out publicly with their stories about my husband because all the complaints they have filed with the Council which deals with this have been ignored throughout the years - no investigation opened. My husband has always kept me in the dark about his work - finances, so let’s just say I have my reasons to believe the allegations. The most horrific one I’ve heard is my husband ruled that a 12-year-old consented to having sex with an adult (legal age of consent at the time was 15 in our country), so there was no conviction. The accused in this trial was wealthy. I didn’t know about this until now. Frankly I’m completely disgusted with him.
Or the judge is just ruling based on the morals and laws of the society he is living in. As horrific as the interpretation is in this case, it may be how the law is written and understood.
Maybe I missed it, but OP didn’t state which country she is from. It is possible that she is from a country with civil law, where judges are much more constrained on how they can rule compared to American common law. Also, that there is a division between rape and sex with a minor shows that the legal system is making a distinction between the two cases, not just the judge husband.
I would expect that having repeated sex with a minor should bring jail time, but I don’t know enough about this country’s legal system to know if this is common or not.
That is a very good point, and could be a variable in a situation like this.
In this specific case, OP followed up to clarify that the ruling DOES defy the law as written.