FOURTH SECTION
FINAL DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 27966/02
by Edward BRUTON
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 1 March 2001,
Having regard to the partial decision of 12 November 2002,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant, Mr Edward Bruton, is a British national who was born in 1964 and lives in Essex. 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 1 April 1993. In February 2001 the applicant applied for widows’ benefits. On 13 February 2001 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 cohabiting as from August 1999.
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, even assuming that the applicant had children from the marriage, at the time of his claim he had been cohabiting and therefore a woman in his position would not have been eligible for Widowed Mother’s Allowance. 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 EarlyLech Garlicki
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy