The government could be facing a pension compensation bill of up to £1bn after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of part-time judges that were initially denied pensions.

Judges that moved from part-time into full-time work were denied pension payments for their part-time work, which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled as “unequal treatment”.

Law firm Browne Jacobson, who acted on behalf of the four lead appellants, said that it predicts that over 1,000 judges could be entitled to pension compensation, costing the Ministry of Justice up to £1bn.

Browne Jacobson senior associate, Caroline Jones, commented: “The appellants are delighted by the judgment and that equal treatment has finally been achieved.

“This judgment means that fee-paid judges who were subsequently appointed full-time salaried members of the judiciary will now be entitled to pensions in respect of their former part-time service.”

The four lead appellants each held one or more positions as a fee-paid part-time judge and moved between fee-paid and/or salaried judicial roles.

However, each appellant lodged their claims more than three months after the end of at least one of their part-time appointments, which was out of time under the part-time workers directive.

These judges had been denied a pension for their fee-paid service on the basis that time runs from the ending of each fee-paid appointment about which a complaint is made, even if they transferred into a salaried appointment.

However, they argued that their claims were not made out of time if the less favourable treatment continued up to and including the point of retirement and instead argued that the correct question to act on was when did the less favourable treatment finally occur.

Previously, part-time fee-paid judges had not been eligible for the judicial pension scheme, unlike their full-time and salaried counterparts.

In 2013, part-time judges won the right to a pension, but part-time fee-paid judges that moved into full-time salaries roles were subject to a three month deadline to claim their pensions under the new rules.

The Supreme Court overturned the employment tribunal's finding that the three months started to run from the end of any part-time appointment and found that neither the Upper Tribunal nor Court of Appeal had given the matter substantive judicial consideration.

Cloisters barristers, Robin Allen QC and Rachel Crasnow QC, who represented the appellants in court, added: “While our submissions were always based on the law as we understood it, it has also seemed to us deeply unfair to hold that where a person suffers a pension regime which discriminates against part-time workers, they should have to bring proceedings before they actually retire and claim their pension.

“We are delighted that Lord Carnwath giving the judgment of the Supreme Court agreed saying that it was indeed “common sense” that such claims could be made at any time up to the end of the primary time limit of three months from the point of retirement.

“Browne Jacobson is to be congratulated for supporting these judges over such a long period of litigation all the way to the Supreme Court and ensuring that common sense prevails.”

Share Story: