This overturns the High Court's February 2016 ruling that refusing the benefit to Siobhan McLaughlin was a breach of her human rights under Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights (McLaughlin, Re Judicial Review, 2016 NICA 53).
Court rules that refusal to pay widow's allowance to common-law wife was lawful
The Northern Ireland Appeal Court has ruled that the Northern Ireland Department of Social Development did not unlawfully discriminate against a woman by denying her 'Widowed Parent's Allowance' on the grounds that she had not been her now-deceased cohabitant's wife or civil partner.
