Communicated on 23 September 2020
Published on 12 October 2020
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 22386/19
Sofia VALVERDE DIGON
against Spain
lodged on 16 April 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 25 May 2014, 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 Labour Court refused to grant the survivor’s pension to the applicant. This judgment was upheld on appeal, on cassation and by the Constitutional Court.
The applicant complains under 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 judgment in her case. This would amount to a discrimination, under Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (in substance), in respect of survivors’ whose partners passed away before the Constitutional Court judgment or more than two years later.
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 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, of the differences between the applicant’s case and other cases as regards the specific legal situation arising from the Constitutional Court’s judgment and the relevant moment when the survivor’s partner died?
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