David PIGGOTT v the United Kingdom - 14401/03 [2008] ECHR 308 (18 March 2008)

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The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 18 March 2008 as a Chamber composed of:

Lech Garlicki, President,
Nicolas Bratza,
Giovanni Bonello,
Stanislav Pavlovschi,
Ljiljana Mijović,
David Thór Björgvinsson,
Ledi Bianku, judges,
and Lawrence Early, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the decision to join this application to other applications (nos. 28067/02, 28087/02, 4839/03, 17233/03, 22361/03, 26083/03, 27988/03, 30242/03, 35695/03, 345/04, 5069/04, 11872/04, 26218/04, 36534/04, 1503/05, 18566/05),

Having regard to the decision to apply Article 29 § 3 of the Convention and examine the admissibility and merits of the case together,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,

The applicant, Mr David Piggott, is a British national who was born in 1950 and lives in Sussex. The applicant was unrepresented before this Court. The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr C. Whomersley of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant’s wife died on 13 July 1998, leaving two children born in 1980 and 1983. Six weeks after the death of his wife the applicant made an oral inquiry and was told he was not entitled to widows’ benefits. His second claim for widows’ benefits was made in November 2002 and was rejected on 28 November 2002 and again on 23 January 2003 on the ground that he was not entitled to widows’ benefits because he was not a woman. The applicant appealed this decision. On 21 March 2003 the applicant was informed that his appeal had been dismissed.

The applicant did not appeal as he considered or was advised that such a remedy would be bound to fail since no such social security benefits or tax allowances were payable to widowers under United Kingdom 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.

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 Court recalls that under Article 34 of the Convention it may receive applications from individuals and others “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”. In order to claim to be a victim of a violation, a person must be directly affected by the impugned measure (see, for example, Cornwell v. the United Kingdom, no. 36578/97 (dec.), 11 May 1999).

Under the legislation providing for widows’ benefits at the relevant time (see Willis, cited above), a widow was not automatically entitled to survivors’ benefits, but had to claim them from the relevant authority. Various time-limits applied: after 1997, a widow had to make a claim for Widow’s Payment (“Wpt”) within three months of her husband’s death; a claim for Widowed Mother’s Allowance (“WMA”) or Widow’s Pension (“WP”) could be made outside that time-limit, but would be back-dated only three months. To be eligible for WMA, a woman had to be entitled to child benefit.

The Court considers, as it held in Cornwell, that unless or until a man has made a claim to the domestic authorities for bereavement benefits, he cannot be regarded as a “victim” of the alleged discrimination involved in the refusal to pay such benefits, because a woman in the same position would not automatically be entitled to widows’ benefits until she had made a claim (see also White v. the United Kingdom, no. 53134/99 (dec.), 7 June 2001, where the Court clarified that, as long as an applicant had made clear to the authorities his intention to claim benefits, the precise form in which he did so was not important). Similarly, a man who failed to apply within the time-limits as they applied to a woman claimant could not, in most cases, claim to be a victim of discrimination, since a woman in the same position would not have been entitled to the benefit in question (see Rogan v. the United Kingdom, no. 57946/00, (dec.), 8 September 2001).

Since a widower cannot claim to be a victim of discrimination until he has applied for benefits and been refused, it has, therefore, been the Court’s consistent practice in such cases to hold that the six months time-limit in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention begins to run from the date of the final refusal by the domestic authorities of such benefits (see, for example, Barrow and Others v. the United Kingdom, (dec.), nos. 68175/01, 68928/01, 69327/01, 13944/02, 13 December 2005).

The Court considers that in relation to the applicant’s first attempt to claim benefits and the consequent rejection in 1998, the complaint is inadmissible as the application was introduced only on 18 April 2003, that is, more than six months later.

In so far as the complaint relates to his second application to the Benefits Agency in 2002, the claim for Wpt was by then outside the prescribed time- limit. With regards to the claim for WMA, by the date of this claim the applicant’s children where over-age and therefore a woman in that position would not have been entitled to WMA. The applicant cannot, therefore, claim to have been a victim of a violation of his rights under the Convention and First Protocol. Therefore, 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.

In so far as the complaint relates to WP the Court held in its lead judgment regarding WP held 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 v. the United Kingdom, no. 42949/98, §§ 40-41, 25 July 2007). 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, this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.

In view of the above it is appropriate to discontinue the application of Article 29 § 3.

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> European Court of Human Rights >> David PIGGOTT v the United Kingdom - 14401/03 [2008] ECHR 308 (18 March 2008) URL: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2008/308.html Cite as: [2008] ECHR 308