Seeking views on proposals for amendments to the Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme to provide for membership in respect of eligible fee-paid judicial service for periods before 7 April 2000, where judicial service continues up to or beyond that date.
The Fee-Paid Judicial Pension Scheme (FPJPS) commenced on 1 April 2017 following a Supreme Court decision in O’Brien v Ministry of Justice [2013] UKSC 6 that fee-paid judges had been treated less favourably than relevant full-time salaried judges because they had not been entitled to a pension (O’Brien 1). Pension benefits under FPJPS presently only accrue for fee-paid judicial service on or after 7 April 2000, the date by which the United Kingdom was required to transpose the Part-Time Work Directive (PTWD) 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 (Case C-432/17), concluding that part-time work undertaken before the deadline for transposing the PTWD on 7 April 2000 must be taken into account for the purposes of calculating a retirement pension (O’Brien 2).
This consultation sets out our proposals for changes to FPJPS to remedy the position for O’Brien 2 so that, where judicial service continues up to or beyond 7 April 2000, membership is available in respect of eligible fee-paid judicial service for periods before that date.
We are also consulting on proposals to update the list of judicial offices in the schedule of fee-paid offices in the FPJPS Regulations.