Widow's pension and alimony (Sentence from the Supreme court november tenth two thousand and fourteen. A step further towards adapting the law to the social reality)

Abstract

Law 40/2007, which amends Article 174 of the General Law on Social Security, introduced a condition to separated or divorced people to acquire the right of perceiving a widow's pension. In fact, this requisite is twofold. Specifically, they have to be receiving an alimony, and such alimony should expire at the time of the decease of the former spouse. The regulation on the rule used to introduce such requisite ended up being deficient given the lack of an adaptation period. Therefore, this generated both social and applicative problems. In the first place, Lower Courts and the Court of Appeals when interpreting in different ways the aforesaid law. Subsequently, the lawmaker amended the law, and the Supreme Court provided an interpretation of it. The sentence from the Supreme Court from November 10th 2014 (RCUD. 80/2014) shows the jurisprudential evolution of the concept of alimony as the condition that entitles the collection of a widow's pension.