European Court of Human Rights

FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 40748/02
by William GILBERT
against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 2 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 Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 7 October 2002,

Having regard to the partial decision of 8 April 2003,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr William Gilbert, was a British national who was born in 1943 and lived in Lancashire. 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 8 January 1991, leaving one child born in 1975. In 2002 the applicant applied for widows’ benefits and his claim was rejected on 2 April 2002. This decision was confirmed by an appeal tribunal on 21 August 2002. 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 died on 16 December 2006.

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

On 9 August 2007 the applicant’s daughter informed the Court that the applicant had died on 16 December 2006. On 12 September 2007 the Registry of the Court sent the applicant’s daughter a letter requesting her to inform the Court by 10 October 2007 about whether the applicant’s estate intended to pursue his application. She was informed that failure to do so would lead the Court to consider striking the application out of its list of cases. The applicant’s daughter has not contacted the Court since.

In the light of the above, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention, the Court considers that the applicant’s estate does not intend to pursue the application. Furthermore, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention or its Protocols which require the continuation of the examination of the application.

Accordingly, the remainder of the application should be struck out of the Court’s list of cases.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

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

Fatoş Aracı Lech Garlicki
Deputy Registrar President