German brothers and sisters are on the verge of being able to have sexual relations without worrying about breaking the law and going to jail. A government committee has said laws that ban incest are a violation of right to sexual self-expression.

The case centres on a Liepzig man, Patrick Stuebing, who was adopted as a child and later met and married his biological sister and together have had four children. Stuebing has been in violation of German law and jailed. While in jail, all of his children except one were removed from his wife. Two of the children are disabled.

Stuebing lost an appeal to the German Federal Constitutional Court two years ago lost at the European Court of Human Rights, the Court saying the German ban on incest did not violate his rights under the European Charter on Human Rights. After repeated appeals at various levels, Stuebing took his case to the German Ethics Council which has issued the following statement: