Discriminatory Treatment In Pension Allowances

Insights

On 11 October 2022, in the case of Beeler vs Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights (''ECHR'') held that the Swiss government was discriminating against men in its pension rules on widowers' pensions due to the differences in the grounds for termination of a widower's entitlement to a survivor's pension, as opposed to the grounds for termination of a widow's entitlement to a survivor's pension. These pension rules were thus deemed to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (the "Convention").

By way of background, the dispute at hand concerned Max Beeler (the "Applicant") who is a Swiss national and father of two children, whom he raised alone after losing his wife in an accident when the children were very young. Section 24(2) of the Swiss Federal Law on Old-Age and Survivors' Insurance ("Federal Law"), provided that entitlement to a widower's pension terminated upon the youngest child reaching the age of majority,