European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 10170/02
by Dennis WILLIAMS
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 24 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 15 February 2002,

Having regard to the partial decision of 8 October 2002,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr Dennis Williams, is a British national who lives in Warwickshire. He was represented before the Court by Ms J. Tonks, a welfare rights adviser in Warwickshire. 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 19 September 1998. On 2 July 2001, the applicant made a claim for widows’ benefits. Subsequently the applicant was sent a further application form under the new system in place as from 9 April 2001. He duly completed and returned the application form on 23 August 2001. Subsequently the applicant was informed that his claim had been disallowed as he was not entitled to the benefits at issue because his wife had died before 9 April 2001.

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.

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

The applicant’s claim in effect refers to the alleged discriminatory treatment resulting from the payment to widows of the relevant benefits under the system in place before 9 April 2001. In the present case, the applicant has provided no evidence of having children or of being in receipt of child benefit, and has made no express claim for Widowed Mother’s Allowance. Consequently, and taking into consideration the partial decision of 8 October 2002, the relevant benefit in respect of the applicant is Widow’s Pension (“WP”).

The Court held in its lead judgment regarding Widow’s Pension (“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, 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 inadmissible the remainder of the application.

Lawrence Early Lech Garlicki
Registrar President