European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 25388/02
by Ayub Mohamed PAREKH
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 17 June 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Lech Garlicki, President,
Nicolas Bratza,
Giovanni Bonello,
Ljiljana Mijović,
Ján Šikuta,
Päivi Hirvelä,
Ledi Bianku, judges,
and Lawrence Early, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 24 June 2002,

Having regard to the partial decision of 8 April 2003,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Ayub Mohamed Parekh, is a British national who was born in 1950 and lives in Bombay, India. He was unrepresented before the Court. 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 18 July 2000 leaving one child born in 1982. On 17 April 2001 the applicant applied for widows’ benefits. On 1 May 2001 the applicant was informed that his claim had been disallowed. The applicant asked for reconsideration. On 14 February 2002 the matter was reconsidered and the decision remained unchanged.

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 child benefit at the time of his claim. He ceased to be eligible for such benefit on 25 December 2001. The applicant has been in receipt of income support since his wife’s death which exceeded the rate of Widowed Mother’s Allowance. Moreover, the applicant’s wife had not paid the required national insurance contributions.

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, 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 greater amount in Income Support then he would have received in Widowed Mother’s Allowance. Moreover, his wife had not paid the required national insurance contributions such as would have entitled her to such allowance. 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.

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 Widow’s Pension (“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

Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.

Lawrence Early Lech Garlicki
Registrar President