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Supreme Court refers to CJEU - refusal of SRP to married transgender woman
The Supreme Court has referred the case of MB (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Respondent) [2016] UKSC 53 to the CJEU to decide whether Council Directive 97/7/EEC precludes the UK from requiring a transgender woman to be annul her previous marriage in order to get a gender recognition certificate and therefore be able to receive state retirement pension at 60
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2014-0220-judgment.pdf
NB - Court of Appeal found it not to be discrimination - http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/caselaw/item/transgender-womans-claim-for-state-pension-at-60-refused-as-she-did-not-hav
Advocate General opinion today on the reference to CJEU from [2016] UKSC 53 concludes that UK Government policy is directly discriminatory and unlawful -
In today’s Opinion, Advocate General Michal Bobek considers that the requirement, applicable only to transgender persons, to be unmarried in order for them to access a state pension is contrary to the Directive. In his view, this amounts to direct discrimination on the basis of sex which is not open to objective justification.
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2017-12/cp170131en.pdf
[ Edited: 5 Dec 2017 at 12:04 pm by Stuart ]