European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 1503/05
by Phillip BUXTON-COOKE
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 16 January 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 5 January 2005,

Having regard to the decision to join the following application to other applications taken on 22 August 2005 (applications nos. 28067/02, 28087/02, 4839/03, 14401/03, 17233/03, 22361/03, 26083/03, 27988/03, 30242/03, 35695/03, 345/04, 5069/04, 11872/04, 26218/04, 35634/04, 18566/05)

Having regard to the decision to apply Article 29 § 3 of the Convention and examine the admissibility and merits of the case together.

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Phillip Buxton-Cooke, is a British national who was born in 1963 and lives in Bradford. He was represented before the Court by Mr John Murray, a lawyer practising in Leeds. 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 was widowed on 28 August 1996. There were two children of the marriage, aged 9 and 13 at the time of the introduction of the application.

Shortly after his wife’s death, a relative asked the Benefits Agency on the applicant’s behalf if he would be entitled to benefits equivalent to those received by widows, but was informed that he would not be eligible because he was a man.

In May 2000 the applicant completed an application form for widows’ benefits, but his application was disallowed because he had amended the form to change all references from “husband” to “wife” etc. Following representations from the applicant’s solicitors, the Benefits Agency agreed in February 2002 to accept as valid the claim form of May 2000. On 21 February 2002 the claim was refused, giving the applicant a right of appeal, which he exercised, first to the original decision-maker, then to the appeal Tribunal, and finally to the Social Security Commissioners, who refused leave to appeal on 5 July 2004.

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 complains that British social security and tax 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.

On 30 June 2006 the Government notified the Court that Mr Buxton-Cooke had been offered GBP 6,000 in settlement and had accepted, although negotiations about the amount of legal costs and expenses were still pending. By a letter of 24 October 2006 the applicant informed the Court that the parties had been able to agree on costs. On 3 November 2006 the Government confirmed this agreement. On 6 November 2006 the parties were informed that the Court would consider striking out the application. On 20 November 2006 Mr Buxton-Cooke was sent a letter asking whether he was content that his case be struck off the Court’s case list. He was warned that, if he did not contact the Court by 30 November 2006, his case would be struck off. The applicant did not reply.

The Court takes note of the agreement reached between the parties (Article 39 of the Convention). It is satisfied that the settlement is based on respect for human rights as defined in the Convention or its Protocols (Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention and Rule 62 § 3 of the Rules of Court).

Accordingly, Article 29 § 3 of the Convention should no longer apply to the case and it should be struck out of the list.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to disjoin this application from the applications to which it was joined;

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

T.L. Early Josep Casadevall
Registrar President