He Supreme Court has decided to grant a widow’s pension to a woman who was the victim of abuse by her ex-partner even though the episodes of gender violence did not occur “at the time” when the separation or divorce was scheduled, as required by law to qualify for said pension.
The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court declares that the legal requirement that to obtain the widow’s pension the victim of gender violence it must be “at the time” of judicial separation or divorce through final sentence (article 220.1 of the General Law of Social Security), must be interpreted “flexibly and taking into account all the concurrent circumstances.”
The important thing, affirms the Chamber, is that “a reasonable temporal connection between gender violence and marital breakdown” can be established.
The Supreme Court understands that this connection occurs in the case. The victim of gender violence obtained sentences condemning the aggressor on several occasions (2000, 2004, 2005 and 2011), while the divorce sentence was issued years later (2017).
The ruling recognizes the right to a widow’s pension (shared with the deceased’s subsequent wife), which had been denied by the National Social Security Institute and the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, arguing that when the marriage broke up, gender violence no longer occurred.
Furthermore, the Court rules out that in the specific case the rule that prevents widowhood applies if the separation took place more than ten years before the death of the deceased.
This novel ruling will benefit many women who were denied access to a widow’s pension because their divorce ruling did not demonstrate causality with the gender-based abuse suffered during the relationship.
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