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Legal challenge for doctors and teachers over pension schemes 30 August 2019
The government could be facing legal challenges from hundreds of thousands of teachers and doctors relating to changes to their pension schemes according to the lawyers who successfully challenged the government on judicial pensions.
Law firm Leigh Day believes that teachers and doctors have grounds for a legal challenge against the government for age discrimination if they have been moved onto a less beneficial pension scheme.
As was the case with the reformed judges and firefighters pension schemes where transitional provisions were introduced, younger teachers and doctors have been forced to move onto a new government pension scheme which is less beneficial than their old scheme. Older teachers and doctors, who are within 10 years of retirement, have been allowed to stay on the old scheme. In December 2018 the Court of Appeal ruled that the Ministry of Justice had discriminated against judges on the grounds of age, race and equal pay in relation to changes to their pension. This ruling also covered a separate challenge brought by firefighters in relation to the same issue. In June 2019 the Supreme Court rejected the government’s application to appeal the ruling, bringing the case to a close. At this time the government said that it believed that that the difference in treatment will need to be remedied across all those schemes.
Leigh Day believes that this problem persists across the public sector and is preparing to bring a claim on behalf of teachers and doctors against the government.
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Brexit bill will allow British judges to depart from previous rulings of EU’s top court 20 December 2019
A Downing street official has confirmed that the government’s Brexit bill will enable courts below the Supreme Court to depart from previous rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The plans are laid out in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), which MPs will vote on this Friday after the Conservatives were re-elected last week. The BBC reports how the PM’s spokesman stated that this would mean that judges at lower courts would not be “inadvertently” tied to the rulings “for years to come”. To date, only the Supreme Court and the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland were able to depart from the rulings of the ECJ, and the spokesman went on to say that extending the ability to do this to lower courts was an “important change” to ensure that they do not face a “legal bottleneck”. He also commented:
"We will take back control of our laws and disentangle ourselves from the EU's legal order just as was promised to the British people."
Critics have commented that the proposals could cause significant confusion, with crossbench peer Lord Pannick QC stating it would "cause very considerable legal uncertainty.” There are concerns that the new legislation will mean substantial additional work for lawyers but more importantly, that it could have potentially detrimental effects on many workers.
Clive Coleman, legal affairs correspondent at the BBC, provides an example of how this might apply and how it could affect payroll professionals, and it relates to holiday pay. The ECJ includes overtime in holiday pay and UK courts are
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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