Communicated on 23 September 2020
Published on 12 October 2020
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 33998/19
María Ángeles BOLLAS ANGULO
against Spain
lodged on 21 June 2019
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the refusal to grant a survivor’s pension to the applicant due to a declaration of unconstitutionality of Article 174 § 3 of the Law of Social Security. The civil partnerships were not required to fulfil any formal registration requirement to be entitled to a survivor’s pension in Catalonia. On 11 March 2014 the Constitutional Court ruled that civil partnerships had to be registered at least two years before one of the partners’ passing away in order to be entitled to a survivor’s pension, for the pension regime to be harmonised all over Spain. The applicant’s partner died on 24 March 2015, without any prior registration of their civil partnership although they had notarized their partnership agreement. As a result, the applicant saw herself in the impossibility to comply with the formal requirement of registration of their civil partnership at least two years before her partner passed away, the registration system for civil partnership having been implemented in Catalonia only in 2017.
The Barcelona Labour Court no. 33 granted the survivor’s pension to the applicant. This judgment was revoked on appeal. The appeal judgment was upheld on cassation and by the Constitutional Court.
The applicant complains under Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the refusal of a survivor’s pension on the grounds of the impossibility to comply with the formal requirements imposed by the Constitutional Court ruling in her case. She also complains of an alleged violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 insofar as Catalonian women have been especially harmed by the described facts.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant’s survivor’s pension expectation constitute a “possession” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? If so, did the deprivation of this right, in full, strike a fair balance between her individual rights and the public interest (see Apostolakis v. Greece, no. 39574/07, § 37, 22 October 2009)? Did the fact that, following the Constitutional Court’s judgment, the applicant was required to register her civil status constitute an excessive burden, considering that this was not required according to regional Catalan law at the relevant time (see Khoniakina v. Georgia, no. 17767/08, §70, 19 June 2012)?
2. Has there been due consideration, under Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (in substance), of the differences between the applicant’s case and other widows in the rest of Spain, as regards the specific legal situation arising from the Constitutional Court’s judgment? (see, mutatis mutandis, Horváth and Kiss v. Hungary, no. 11146/11, § 128, 29 January 2013, and D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 57325/00, § 175, ECHR 2007‑IV)?
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