European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 28054/02
by Richard OWENS
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 23 September 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Lech Garlicki, President,
Nicolas Bratza,
Giovanni Bonello,
Ljiljana Mijović,
David Thór Björgvinsson,
Ledi Bianku,
Mihai Poalelungi, judges,
and Lawrence Early, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 1 March 2001,

Having regard to the decision to communicate this application and to join it to other applications (nos. 27947/02, 27955/02, 27958/02, 27959/02, 27960/02, 27961/02, 27963/02, 27968/02, 27970/02, 27985/02, 27990/02, 28003/02, 28011/02, 28014/02, 28016/02, 28018/02, 28025/02, 28026/02, 28029/02, 28033/02, 28035/02, 28040/02, 28046/02, 28047/02, 28056/02, 28058/02, 28064/02, 28073/02, 28080/02, 28081/02, 28085/02, 28088/02, 28091/02, 28092/02, 28103/02, 28109/02, 28110/02),

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Richard Owens, is a British national who was born in 1944 and lives in London. He was represented before the Court by Royds Rdw, solicitors 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 2 August 1999 leaving dependent children. In November 2000 the applicant applied for widows' benefits. On 8 November 2000 the applicant was informed that his claim had been disallowed. The applicant did not appeal further as he considered or was advised that such a remedy would be bound to fail since no such social security benefit was payable to widowers under United Kingdom law.

The applicant was in receipt of Incapacity Benefit at the relevant time, the amount of which exceeded the rate of Widowed Mother's Allowance.

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 and 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

The Court recalls that a widow was not automatically entitled to survivors' benefits, but had to claim them from the relevant authority. Various time-limits applied: after 1997, a widow had to make a claim for Widow's Payment (“Wpt”) within three months of her husband's death; a claim for Widowed Mother's Allowance (“WMA”) or Widow's Pension (“WP”) could be made outside that time-limit, but would be back-dated only three months. To be eligible for WMA, a woman had to be entitled to child benefit.

The Court considers, as it held in Cornwell v. the United Kingdom (no. 36578/97, (dec.), 11 May 1999), that unless or until a man has made a claim to the domestic authorities for bereavement benefits, he cannot be regarded as a “victim” of the alleged discrimination involved in the refusal to pay such benefits, because a woman in the same position would not automatically be entitled to widows' benefits until she had made a claim (see also White v. the United Kingdom, no. 53134/99 (dec.), 7 June 2001, where the Court clarified that, as long as an applicant had made clear to the authorities his intention to claim benefits, the precise form in which he did so was not important). Similarly, a man who failed to apply within the time-limits as they applied to a woman claimant could not, in most cases, claim to be a victim of discrimination, since a woman in the same position would not have been entitled to the benefit in question (see Rogan v. the United Kingdom, no. 57946/00, (dec.), 8 September 2001).

Consequently, the applicant's claim for Wpt made in November 2000 had been made out of time. Thus, the applicant cannot claim to have been a victim of a violation of his rights under the Convention and Protocol No. 1, and the complaint in respect of Wpt is incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention and must be declared inadmissible in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

The Court recalls that, in accordance with Article 34 of the Convention, it may receive applications only from persons “claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the protocols thereto”. A person can claim to be a victim of a particular measure only if he or she is directly affected by it (see, amongst many other authorities, the Norris v. Ireland judgment of 26 October 1998, Series A no. 142, § 30).

The Court notes that the applicant received a higher amount in Incapacity Benefit than he would have received in WMA. In these circumstances, the applicant cannot claim to be directly affected by the alleged discrimination between men and women or to be a victim of a violation of the Convention since a woman in his position would not have been entitled to the benefit at issue.

It follows that this complaint is incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention and must be declared inadmissible in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

Regarding WP, the Court held in its lead judgment 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, cited above, §§ 40-41). The Court, consequently, considering it was not necessary to examine separately the complaint in respect of Article 8, 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

Disjoins the application from the others to which it is joined;

Declares the application inadmissible.

Lawrence Early Lech Garlicki
Registrar President