The Supreme Court recognizes a pension for a victim of sexist violence whose ex-husband was convicted four times

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a victim of sexist violence and has recognized her right to receive a widow’s pension for the death of her ex-husband, who was convicted up to four times for mistreatment and threats against her. The judges recognize that the final divorce decree did not arrive until 2017 and that his last sentence was from 2011, but they also highlight that the real separation had occurred years before and that, therefore, he has the right to collect that reserved widow’s pension. for victims of sexist violence when their attacker dies.

The Social Judges have studied the case of a woman who married in 1979 and who was judicially separated in 2000, with the courts definitively ruling on the divorce in 2017. In that period of time, different Catalan courts signed up to four sentences. against him for different minor crimes of threats or mistreatment related to sexist violence. Events that started at the end of the nineties and whose last judicial sentence came in 2011.

By then, the convicted man was already living with another couple, whom he married shortly before his death at Christmas 2018. His ex-wife’s legal battle then began for Social Security to recognize his right to collect the widow’s pension that he received. The law recognizes women who are victims of sexist violence at the time of judicial separation or divorce with a final ruling. Both the court and the Superior Court of Catalonia rejected his requests, understanding that by the time the judges finally ruled on his divorce in 2017, he was no longer a victim of sexist violence.

The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court has understood that the woman “has the right to the widow’s pension claimed” because the temporal connection between the gender violence she suffered for years and the breakup of her marriage “is evident.” Their judicial separation came in 2000 and, by then, they had already filed up to three complaints. That same year, the Supreme Court highlights, the first conviction came against his ex-partner. “Gender violence continued after the separation sentence in 2000,” explains the Supreme Court.

“We cannot but conclude that there was also a reasonable temporal connection with the moment of the divorce,” explains the Social Chamber. The magistrates recall that they have been issuing rulings for several years in which they call for a flexible study of the legal rules and deadlines. Some “flexible criteria” and “open concepts” that, as the Supreme Court has been saying for several years, “allow better attention to situations of need.” In previous resolutions, for example, the same court has allowed the collection of this pension even if there is no sentence of sexist violence.