CASE OF PEARSON v. THE UNITED KINGDOM
No violation of Art. 14+P1-1
Josep Casadevall;Nicolas Bratza
7. The applicant was born in 1942 and lives in Birmingham. 8. The applicant, aged sixty three, would not become eligible for a State pension until he was sixty five, whereas a woman could claim a State pension from age sixty. He was currently unemployed but if he returned to work he and any potential employer would be liable to make national insurance contributions. 9. On 4 February 2002, the applicant issued proceedings for damages in the High Court against the Benefits Agency, alleging inter alia that the refusal to pay him a pension from the age of sixty was discriminatory. On 2 October 2002, the applicant’s claim was struck out on the basis that the particulars of claim disclosed no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim (Civil Procedure Rule 3.4.2.). On 27 February 2003, permission to appeal was refused. 10. Section 122 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 defines “pensionable age” as: “(a) the age of 65, in the case of a man; and (b) the age of 60, in the case of a woman”. 11. Section 126 of the Pensions Act 1995 provides for the equalisation of State pension ages for men and women to the age of 65. The State pension age for women will increase gradually from 2010 and the equalisation will be complete in 2020. At the same time, the age until which women are liable to pay national insurance contributions will gradually increase in line with the increase in the State pension age. 12. Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 provides for the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security. However, in Article 7(1)(a) the Directive provides for derogation in the matter of “the determination of pensionable age for the purposes of granting old-age and retirement pensions and the possible consequences therefore for other benefits”. 13. In Case C-9/91 The Queen v. Secretary of State for Social Security, ex parte Equal Opportunities Commission [1992] ECR 1-4297 (“the EOC case” concerning a reference for a preliminary ruling from the High Court), the European Court of Justice found that: Article 7(1)a had to be interpreted as authorising the determination of a statutory pensionable age which differs according to sex for the purposes of granting old-age and retirement pensions and also forms of discrimination which are necessarily linked to that difference; Inequality between men and women with respect to the length of contribution periods required to obtain a pension constitutes such discrimination where, having regard to the financial equilibrium of the national pension system in the context in which it appears, it cannot be dissociated from a difference in pensionable age; In view of the advantages allowed to women by national pension systems, in particular as regards statutory pensionable age and length of contribution periods, and the disruption that would necessarily be caused to the equilibrium of those systems if the principle of equality between the sexes were to be applied from one day to the next in respect of those periods, the Community legislature intended to authorise the progressive implementation of that principle by the member States and that progressive nature could not be ensured if the scope of the derogation authorised by Article 7(1)a were to be interpreted restrictively.