Communicated on 22 September 2020
Published on 12 October 2020
THIRD SECTION
Applications nos. 37119/19 and 57464/19
Margarita MERIDA MOLERO against Spain
and Lidia RIBE PEREZ against Spain
lodged on 2 July 2019 and 29 October 2019 respectively
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASES
The applications concern the refusal to grant a survivor’s pension to the applicants due to a declaration of unconstitutionality of Article 174 § 3 of the Law of Social Security.
According to Article 234-1 of the Catalan Civil Code a civil partnership was considered stable when meeting any of these three circumstances: cohabitation for more than two years without interruption; cohabitation having a common child; or formalisation of the relationship by notarial deed. According to this regulation, the applicants and their respective partners were considered civil partnerships.
The applicant’s partners died, respectively, on 12 July 2015 and 3 November 2014. The applicants requested survivor’s pensions. A judgment of the Constitutional Court of 11 March 2014 declared the unconstitutionality of Article 174 § 3 of Social Security Law 1/1994 which referred to Catalonian legislation. The judgment imposed the same requirements in order to access to a survivor’s pension all over Spain: five years of cohabitation and, two years before passing away, either registration of the cohabitation in a public register or a notarial deed.
Labour Courts of Barcelona refused to grant the survivor’s pensions to the first applicant, and granted it to the second one on the basis that the unconstitutionality declaration did not affect pre-existing situations in order to guarantee legal certainty. These judgments were upheld on appeal, on cassation and by the Constitutional Court. The applicants were not awarded the survivor’s pensions due to the lack of registration of their civil partnerships for at least two years.
The applicants complain under Article 6 of the Convention 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 their cases and 14 of the Convention, the latter read in conjunction to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. They also complain that women are particularly harmed by the described facts.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the fact that, following the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 14 March 2014, the applicants were required to comply with new formal requirements to access to a survivor’s pension constitute a violation of Article 6 of the Convention, considering that these requirements could not be foreseen according to regional Catalan law at the relevant time?
2. Has there been due consideration of the applicants’ rights under Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in the present cases? In particular, has there been due consideration of the gender mainstreaming or an indirect discrimination on grounds of sex in the access to a survivor’s pension?
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