Precision in the payment of widower’s pensions for divorced men
Published: Friday, Dec 27th 2024, 13:20
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The compensation office of the canton of Fribourg wrongly stopped paying a widower's pension to a divorced man after his daughter reached the age of majority in February 2022. The compensation fund based its decision on a directive from the Federal Social Insurance Office. The teenager's mother had died in 2021.
Following the widely publicized ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in October 2022 on the case of a widower, the Federal Social Insurance Office established a transitional arrangement. This will apply until the next revision of the AHV Act comes into force.
According to the directive, widowers' pensions are no longer discontinued once the youngest child has reached the age of majority, as the Federal Supreme Court writes in a ruling published on Friday. In the case of a divorced man whose ex-wife has died and who receives a widower's pension due to joint children, the pension should be discontinued when the child comes of age, according to the ruling.
According to the Federal Supreme Court, this is not permissible. In the OASI Act still in force, divorced men with children were treated equally to widows in the event of the death of their ex-wives with regard to the accrual and amount of a pension entitlement. Insofar as the reason for the annulment of the pension is no longer applicable to widows after the ruling of the ECtHR, it can also play no role for a divorced man. (Judgment 9C_334/2024 of 16.12.2024)
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