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Pensioners have lost the final round in a long-running battle for equal pension rights abroad.
Judges in Strasbourg ruled that denying index-linked pension rises to many who have chosen to settle abroad does not breach their human rights.
The verdict ends years of courtroom wrangling in which 13 retired expatriates took on the Government - and lost at each legal stage.
Under current Government 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 USA, 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 had argued that the reference to "other status" covered their right to retire to the country of their choice without losing pension rights.
After the verdict, John Markham, director of UK parliamentary affairs for the International Consortium of British Pensioners, which supported the case, said: "The ruling is completely indefensible and will leave half a million pensioners facing the possibility of destitution.
"All British people should have equal freedom of choice as regards where to live in their retirement. Many of us have families overseas, children who have moved abroad for example, and will want to join them in our old age without having to worry about becoming a financial burden. What the Government is doing is utterly immoral, unjust and un-British."
Reader views (2)
Totally unfair......I have a friend who paid income tax and national insurance in the UK, the country of his birth, for 35 years before re-marrying and moving to South America. His UK state pension is not uprated in line with what he would have received had he still been living here and,he is further hit by the weakness of the £ and exchange rates. Does our government care about this? No it does not so, he will be worse off than many on several types of state benefits paid here to people who will never achieve 35 years of paying in!!!!!!! Disgusting!!!!
- Karl Marxian Lipscombe, New Barnet, England, 16/03/2010 12:47
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How can this Government not pay the going rate for Pensions to people who live abroad after all they all paid into it. Yet they pay Pensions to people who live in Britain who have not paid a penny into the system.
- Stan White, leeds, 16/03/2010 08:17
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