FOURTH SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 71570/01 by John Henry WILSON against the United Kingdom

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 above application lodged on 3 July 2001,

Having regard to the partial decision of 10 September 2002 , inter alia , to join these applications to other applications (nos. 58372/00, 61878/00, 63477/00, 63480/00, 63647/00, 63961/00, 64986/01, 64996/01, 65202/01, 65478/01, 65507/01, 65741/01, 65906/01, 66181/01, 67100/01, 67913/01, 68173/01, 68175/01, 68264/01, 68298/01, 68449/01, 69076/01, 69323/01, 69327/01, 69491/01, 70521/01, 70741/01, 71176/01, 71428/01, 71429/01, 71758/01, 72656/01, 73646/01, 73653/01, 73978/01, 74961/01, 75092/01, 75126/01, 75993/01, 75995/01, 77129/01, 77424/01, 682/02, 2573/02, 4810/02, 10747/02, 13944/02, 14404/02 and 14537/02),

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

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr John Henry Wilson , is a British national who was born in 1952 and lives in County Fermanagh . He was represented before the Court by Mr s K Campbell , a lawyer practising in Belfast . The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr C. Whomersley of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office .

A. The circumstances of the case

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

The applicant ’ s wife died on 11 February 1998, leaving three children born in 1977, 1979 and 1981 . His claim for Widow ’ s Pension (“WP”) was made on 23 November 2000 and was rejected on 20 December 2000 on the grou nd that he was not entitled to WP because he was not a woman. The applicant asked for reconsideration. On 30 January 2001 the matter was reconsidered and the decision remained unchanged. The applicant appealed and on 4 April 2001 the original decision was upheld. T he applicant did not appeal further as he considered or was advised that such a remedy would be bound to fail since no such social security benefits were payable to widowers under United Kingdom l aw .

B. Relevant domestic law

The domestic law relevant to this application is set out in Runkee and White v. the United Kingdom , no. 42949/98, §§ 40-41, 25 July 2007.

COMPLAINT

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 LAW

By a letter of 27 August 2007 the applicant was informed that the judgment in Runkee and White v. the United Kingdom (nos. 42949/98 and 53134/99), delivered on 10 May 2007, had become final on 25 July 2007 following the parties ’ notification tha t neither side intended to seek referral of the case to t he Grand Chamber (Article 44 § 2 (a) of the Convention).

On 16 January 2008 the applicant ’ s legal representative informed the Registry that he had no objection to the case being struck out of the list as the only outstanding issue concerned WP.

The Court considers that, in these circumstances, the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue his application, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine , the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to disjoin the application from the others to which it was joined;

Decides to strike the remainder of the application out of its list of cases .

Lawrence Early Lech Garlicki Registrar President