European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 78114/01
by Craig Harold LAMB
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 27 November 2007 as a Chamber composed of:

Mr J. Casadevall, President,
Sir Nicolas Bratza,
Mr G. Bonello,
Mr K. Traja,
Mr S. Pavlovschi,
Mr J. Šikuta,
Mrs P. Hirvelä, judges,

and Mr T.L. Early, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 12 September 2001,

Having regard to the partial decision of 8 October 2002,

Having regard to the formal declarations accepting a friendly settlement of the case,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Craig Harold Lamb, is a British national who was born in 1959 and lives in Manchester. He was represented before the Court by Ms Jacky Starling, a lawyer practising in London. The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr C. Whomersley of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant’s wife died on 8 January 1995, leaving one child born in 1986. His second claim for widows’ benefits was made in March 2001 and was rejected on 21 March 2001 on the ground that he was not entitled to widows’ benefits because he was not a woman.

The applicant did not appeal as he considered or was advised that such a remedy would be bound to fail since no such social security benefits were payable to widowers under United Kingdom law.

B.  Relevant domestic law

The domestic law relevant to this application is set out in Willis v. the United Kingdom, no. 36042/97, §§ 14-26, ECHR 2002-IV.

COMPLAINTS

The applicant complained that British social security legislation discriminated against him on grounds of sex, in breach of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with both Article 8 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.

THE LAW

By a letter of 11 May 2005 the respondent Government informed the Court that the House of Lords had decided, in relation to the claims for Widowed Mother’s Allowance (WMA) and Widow’s Payment (WPt), that there was in principle no objective justification at the relevant time for not paying these benefits to widowers as well as widows, but that the Government had a defence under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (the HRA). It noted that, in view of this, the multitude of cases before the Court and the fact that the HRA defence was only applicable in the domestic arena, the Government were prepared, in principle, to settle all claims made by widowers against the United Kingdom arising out of the arrangements applicable prior to April 2001 for the payment of WMA and WPt.

By a letter of 29 January 2007 the applicant’s representative notified the Court that Mr Lamb had been offered GBP 3,385.36 in respect of his claims for WPt and/or WMA and that he had accepted payment. On 12 February 2007 the applicant’s representative was sent a letter by the Registry stating that the Court would consider striking the case out of its list. On 7 March 2007 the applicant’s representative informed the Registry that the applicant had no objection.

The Court takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties in respect of WPt and WMA. It is satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention and Rule 62 § 3 of the Rules of Court).

Accordingly, the remainder of the application should be struck out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the remainder of the application out of its list of cases.

T.L. Early Josep Casadevall
Registrar President