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Neutral Citation Number:	2014 UKUT 495 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number:	CG 4295 2013
Appellant:	SB
Respondent:	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (BB)
Judge/Commissioner:	Other Judges / Other Commissioners/Deputy Commissioners
Date Of Decision:	22/10/2014
Date Added:	19/11/2014
Main Category:	Bereavement and death benefits
Main Subcategory:	bereavement payments
Secondary Category:
Secondary Subcategory:
Notes:	Reported as [2015] AACR 15 Bereavement payments – validity of marriage – whether transnational telephone marriage ceremony valid – whether validity determined by law of Pakistan or by laws of England and Pakistan – dual validity test for lex loci celebrationis The appellant’s bereavement benefit claim was refused by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the basis that the marriage with her husband in 1986 was not valid. He had been previously married in a telephone ceremony whilst he was in England and the woman was in Pakistan. That ceremony was valid under the law of Pakistan and the DWP decided that the subsequent talaq divorce was invalid. The First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) upheld that decision. The primary issue before the Upper Tribunal (UT) was the applicable lex loci celebrationis of the marriage of the deceased to his first wife and, in particular, whether the formal validity of the marriage was governed by the laws of both England and Pakistan and the impact on that question of the decision in A v K [2011] CSOH 101; 2011 SLT 873. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. the formal validity of a telephone marriage should be determined according to the laws of the countries in which both parties are physically present when the marriage takes place, with the result that a telephone marriage celebrated whilst one of the parties was in the England would not be valid since telephone marriages are not valid in this country: the decision in A v K was not followed (paragraphs 29 and 40); 2. the whole of the ceremony must be valid according to the laws of both of the jurisdictions in which all of the essential elements of the ceremony take place and third party endorsement, whether civil or religious, ceremonial or bureaucratic, did not have the effect, for the purposes of determining the formal validity of the marriage, of rendering the place of the marriage solely where it was solemnised or certified without reference to the place where the consent of the parties was uttered (paragraph 42). The judge set aside the decision of the F-tT and re-made the decision, confirming the appellant’s entitlement to bereavement benefit.
Decision(s) to Download:	[2015] AACR 15ws.doc