Denise Brewster was initially refused payments from her late partner's occupational pension scheme as the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee, which administers the pension scheme, says it did not receive a form in which her partner nominated her to be eligible for a survivor’s pension.
2009 regulations state that unmarried co-habiting partners must be nominated by the scheme member in order to be eligible for a survivor's pension. The survivor must also show that he or she has been a cohabitant for two years before the date on which the member sent the nomination and has been in that position for two years before the date of death.
Denise Brewster lived with her partner, William Leonard McMullan, for around ten years before December 2009. On Christmas Eve that year, they became engaged. Mr McMullan died two days later.
At the time of his death, Mr McMullan was employed by Translink, a public transport operator, for whom he had worked for approximately 15 years. Throughout that time he had been a member of, and had paid into, the Local Government Pension Scheme.
During the appeal of the decision, the equivalent regulations in England and Wales and in Scotland were amended to remove the nomination requirement in those schemes. When Denise Brewster became aware of these changes, she applied to the Court of Appeal for her appeal to be re-opened. Her application was refused and she then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that Ms Brewster is entitled to receive a survivor’s pension under the scheme, and that as a surviving unmarried cohabiting partner she should be awarded the same status as a surviving married or civil partner.
The Court says the 2009 Regulations already require a surviving partner to prove that a genuine and subsisting relationship existed, so the nomination requirement adds no extra value.
The Court ruling stated: "There is no rational connection between the objective, which was to remove the difference of treatment between a longstanding cohabitant and a married or civil partner, and the imposition of the nomination requirement and therefore its discriminatory effect cannot be justified."
Steve Webb, Director of Policy at Royal London and former pensions minister, commented: “This is a very welcome ruling. It is totally unacceptable for cohabiting couples to be treated as second class citizens. With more than six million people living together as couples and the numbers rising every year, this is an issue that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We need pension scheme rules which reflect the world we live in today, and not the world of fifty years ago.”
