The UK Supreme Court [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] on Thursday that denying the widowed parent’s allowance to an unmarried mother was illegal.

The widowed parent’s allowance, or 39A, is a contributory social security benefit payable to men and women with dependent children. Prior to this decision, a widowed parent can only claim the allowance if they were married to or in a civil partnership with the deceased.

Siobhan McLaughlin, a mother of four, was married to her partner John Adams for 23 years until he lost his battle with cancer in 2014. The Northern Ireland Department of Communities [official website] denied her benefit claim, which was upheld by the Court of Appeals.

In the 4 to 1 decision, the court found that the allowance is incompatible with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) read along with Article 8 only “insofar as it precludes any entitlement to the WPA by a surviving unmarried partner of the deceased.”

The main contributor, Lady Hale, stated in the opinion that the legislative purpose should be for the primary benefit of the children, in which the official marriage of their parents would make no difference.

The court concluded that it is up to the UK government to ultimately change the law for these types of benefits.