Marital-status meaning

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 14

Marital-status meaning

[ The Human Rights Com- > mission hopes to give a J legal interpretation in the ;next few months of the ijmeaning of “marital status.” j Parliament did not define ' the expression when it inj eluded it in the Human Rights Commission Act, i 1977. Instead, it asked the '[commission to define it. | The Chief Human Rignts jCommissioner- (Mr P. J. i Downey) said that persons who had lodged com- ’ plaints under the act alleging discrimination on the ! ground of marital status [were being asked to make |submissions, as were the re-, ■spondents and a few organ-1 lisations directly affected., such as the Association of I

Superannuation Funds of i New Zealand. Mr Downey said there ! were two possible inter, pretations. One was the dis- ’ tinction between married, single, de facto, divorced, or i widowed statuses; the other the position or status of i being married. ‘The difference is quite phenomenal,” said Mr Downey. One area it could affect is superannuation schemes. Most pension schemes have benefits for widows. The big , question is whether the act : makes it mandatory- for institutions with such schemes [to pay out the same benefit to a partner who was not I married.