Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 117
March 2009
Weller v. Hungary - 44399/05
Judgment 31.3.2009 [Section II]
Article 14
Discrimination
Refusal to pay a benefit on account of parental status and nationality: violation
Facts: The first applicant, a Hungarian national, married a Romanian citizen, who gave birth to their twin sons, the second and third applicants, in 2005. Both twins acquired Hungarian nationality by birth. The first applicant requested maternity benefit in his own name and on behalf of his children. The authorities refused his request as, under the Act on Family Support (“the Act”), only mothers with Hungarian citizenship, adoptive parents and guardians were entitled to the benefit in question and a natural father could apply for such an allowance only if the mother died. Moreover, the Act applied only to those non-Hungarian citizens who had obtained settlement permits, being either refugees or citizens of another Member State of the European Union. Since the applicant’s wife did not fall into either of these categories, the claim had to be rejected. The first applicant unsuccessfully challenged this decision before the courts.
Law: The applicants’ exclusion from the maternity benefit had amounted to a difference in treatment on grounds of the first applicant’s parental status and the nationality of the mother of the second and the third applicants. In the Court’s view, the wide range of entitled persons proved that the allowance was aimed at supporting newborn children and the whole family raising them, and not only at reducing the hardship of giving birth sustained by the mother. The applicants’ situation could therefore be compared to those families and their members who enjoyed maternity benefits. However, neither the domestic authorities nor the Government had put forward any objective and reasonable ground to justify the general exclusion of natural fathers from a benefit aimed at supporting all those who were raising newborn children, when mothers, adoptive parents and guardians were entitled to it. The first applicant had therefore suffered discrimination on the ground of his parental status in the exercise of his right to respect for his family life. Concerning the second and third applicants, there was no indication in the case file that the applicants’ mother had abused or at least intended to misuse the Hungarian social-security system. Her situation in Hungary was lawful and fully regulated by the authorities. The applicants could not benefit from the allowance at issue since their father was a Hungarian and their mother a foreigner, whereas the Act conferred such an entitlement on a family with children of a Hungarian mother and a foreign father. The Court found no reasonable justification for this practice. Nor had the Government put forward any convincing argument to justify it. The difference in treatment had therefore amounted to discrimination.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – EUR 720 in respect of pecuniary damage and EUR 1,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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