Miller and others (Appellants) v Ministry of Justice (Respondent)

Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2015/0246

Parties

Appellant(s)

Peter Haworth, Charles Fox, John Sprack, Peter Wain

Respondent(s)

Ministry of Justice

Issue

Whether, under regulation 8(2) of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (PTWR), time starts to run from the end of the relevant pensionable service or from the date when the judge retires and begins to receive his pension.

Facts

The appellants each worked in a part-time judicial office before either moving on to become full-time judges or moving from one type of part-time judicial work to another. They worked in a variety of circumstances all of which involved some discontinuity between the end of their appointment and the commencement of the claim. The appellants launched a claim of unlawful discrimination on the basis of the decision in O’Brien v Ministry of Justice [2013] UKSC 6. The Employment Tribunal held that the claims were out of time and the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellants’ appeal. In the appeal to the Supreme Court, the appellants’ claims were heard together with an appeal by Mr Dermod O’Brien. In O’Brien v Ministry of Justice [2017] UKSC 46, the Supreme Court made the following reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): Does Directive 97/81, and in particular clause 4 of the Framework Agreement annexed thereto concerning the principle of non-discrimination, require that periods of service prior to the deadline for transposing the Directive should be taken into account when calculating the amount of the retirement pension of a part-time worker, if they would be taken into account when calculating the pension of a comparable full-time worker? The CJEU held that Directive 97/81 must be interpreted as meaning that periods of service prior to the deadline for transposing Directive 97/81 must be taken into account for the purpose of calculating the retirement pension entitlement. The Ministry of Justice has accepted that the ruling of the CJEU provides a definitive answer to Mr O’Brien’s appeal. However, the CJEU reference did not address whether the appellants’ claims of unlawful discrimination were made out of time.

Date of issue

4 December 2015

Judgment details

Judgment date

16 December 2019

Neutral citation

[2019] UKSC 60

Judgment links

Judgment summary

16 December 2019

Appeal

Justices

Lady Hale

Lord Kerr

Lord Reed

Lord Carnwath

Lord Hughes

Hearing dates

Full hearing

Start date

8 March 2017

End date

11 July 2019

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