Part-time judges get owed pensions as govt consults on new rules

Pensions Expert reported in December that four judges saw the Supreme Court rule in favour of their appeal to reclaim a pension. These professionals – who had part-time and full-time salaried appointments – should not have been denied their pensions, even though they did not make a claim to an employment tribunal within three months of completing their part-time work.

Until the decision, known as the Miller case, judges who held both fee-paid and salaried appointments had time restrictions on when they could claim their pension rights.

This was the last of a series of three court cases, dating back to 2013, when part-time judges in fee-paid roles earned their right to a pension due to a decision from the Supreme Court.

The Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme commenced in April 2017 as a result of the case, but its pension benefits only accrue for fee-paid judicial service on or after April 2000, the date by which the UK was required to transpose the Part-Time Work Directive into domestic law.

In November 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down judgment in the case of O’Brien v Ministry of Justice, concluding that part-time work undertaken before the deadline for transposing the directive must be taken into account for the purposes of calculating a retirement pension.

The government published on Wednesday a consultation to make changes to the scheme to remedy its position considering the last two court cases – making membership available in respect of eligible fee-paid judicial service for periods before 2000 so that service can be accrued and pension benefits paid. Adding to this, the Ministry of Justice will also amend the membership criteria to reflect the Miller judgment.

The consultation is running until September 18, and the government anticipates that the amended regulations could come into force in 2022.

After that, all fee-paid judges eligible for a revised pension under the scheme will be contacted by the department. In the interim, fee-paid judges who consider they have a claim are invited to contact the department’s judicial claims team if they haven’t done so, the Ministry of Justice stated.

As a result of the two court cases there are approximately 4,600 judges who have new, or incremental, claims for fee-paid pension scheme eligibility. T

he judicial claims team is in the process of agreeing service records with these judges, and has started making payments in lieu of pension to retired judges in this cohort, including lump-sum arrears payments where appropriate.