A lost cause

The government has long been seeking to wage a war on the “common law marriage myth”, namely that couples who are living together unmarried are treated in law as if they were married. That, of course, is false.

There are a number of ways that married couples and unmarried couples are treated differently, most notably the availability of financial orders under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 on divorce. But, are these differences consistent with human rights law? Are unmarried couples who are treated differently from married ones discriminated against?

Definition of dependants
That issue came to the Court of Appeal in Swift v Secretary of State for Justice [2013] EWCA Civ 193. It concerned s 1(3)(b) Fatal Accidents Act 1976 (FAA 1976) which provides for damages to be awarded to a dependant of a person killed by a wrongful act, neglect or default. The case centred on the definition of a dependant in s 1 (3): “In this Act