Expat Britons await pension ruling (From Northwich Guardian)

Expat Britons await pension ruling

5:34am Tuesday 16th March 2010 in National News © Press Association 2011

More than half a million retired Britons living abroad could be in line for Government payouts if a group fighting a legal battle over pension rights win their case.

After years of courtroom wrangling, 13 expatriates will learn on Tuesday if they have won their test case for the right to index-linked rises routinely paid to UK-based pensioners but denied to those who have settled abroad.

The decision is being made by judges at the European Court of Human Rights.

Under current rules, pensioners who retire abroad only get state pension increases in line with inflation if they live in countries with reciprocal arrangements - the other 26 EU countries, plus the US, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and Liechtenstein.

So-called "up-rating" of the state pension does not apply to those opting to settle in Canada, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand.

The 13 in the test case live in Canada, South Africa and Australia. They include Annette Carson, 78, who emigrated to South Africa in 1989 and whose example was cited in the original legal claims which were rejected in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.

A subsequent claim in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg was also lost, when all but one of the judges ruled that denying the 13 their pension increases did not breach a Human Rights Convention declaration that "the enjoyment of (convention) rights and freedoms shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status".

The 13 argued that the reference to "other status" covered their right to retire to the country of their choice without losing pension rights.

In a hearing in the human rights court last September - effectively the last appeal stage - lawyers argued that pensioners who had made full national insurance contributions throughout their working lives should not have their pensions frozen and denied statutory increase just because of their country of residence.

But Government lawyers said the priority had to be to target money on the poorest pensioners living at home, and that it could not apply increases to those opting to live in countries which have no reciprocal agreements with the UK.