European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 71561/01
by Thomas SIZER
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 23 October 2007 as a Chamber composed of:

Mr J. Casadevall, President,
Sir Nicolas Bratza,
Mr G. Bonello,
Mr K. Traja,
Mr S. Pavlovschi,
Mr L. Garlicki,
Mrs P. Hirvelä, judges,
and Mr T.L. Early, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 6 July 2001,

Having regard to the partial decision of 8 October 2002,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Thomas Sizer, is a British national who was born in 1938 and lives in Devon. He was represented before the Court by Ms J. 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 29 February 1996, leaving a child born in 1982. His second claim for widows’ benefits was made on 4 January 2001 and was rejected on 8 January 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 Runkee and White v. the United Kingdom, no. 42949/98, §§ 40-41, 25 July 2007.

COMPLAINT

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

Mr Sizer’s child was over 19 years of age at the time of his second claim and therefore a woman in his position would have been entitled to a Widow’s Pension (“WP”).

However, the Court held in its lead judgment regarding WP that at its origin, and until its abolition in respect of women whose spouses died after 9 April 2001, WP was intended to correct “factual inequalities” between older widows, as a group, and the rest of the population and that this difference in treatment was reasonably and objectively justified. Moreover, the Court considered that the United Kingdom could not be criticised for not having abolished WP earlier and that it was not unreasonable of the legislature to decide to introduce the reform slowly (see Runkee and White v. the United Kingdom, no. 42949/98, §§ 40-41, 25 July 2007). The Court, consequently, did not find a violation of Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in respect of the non-payment to the applicants of Widow’s Pension or equivalent (ibid § 42).

Consequently, the complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application.

T. L. Early Josep Casadevall
Registrar President