Thread by @CopsAgainst

On our way to the Royal Courts of Justice to hear the Judges #pensionchallenge appeal hearing. Where possible we’ll be providing updates on the case as it progresses.

Unfortunately the court have placed restrictions on ‘live’ tweeting.... we’ll provide updates during any breaks.
First day is likely to be taken up by Government arguments.

The judges sitting in the appeal are:

The Honourable Mr Justice Rimer
catribunal.org.uk/about/personne…

The art Honourable Lord Justice Longmore
middletemple.org.uk/bencher-person…

Lord Justice Elias
judiciary.uk/announcements/…

The first acknowledgement of yesterday was to the constitution of the bench.... it was noted that Mr Justice Rimer has a full pension which would not be effected by any decision made with Lord justice Longmore & Elias being brought back from retirement

Mr Cavanagh (C) opened the morning By outlining the Gov grounds of appeal in relation to the judgement handed down by Mr Justice Wilkie re legitimate aim at the EAT & their grounds for acounter claim re proportionality re judges and Firefighters

C states that Wilkie was correct in his judgement regarding legitimate aim in that he understood the less stricter application of ECJ authorities, which allow member states a broad margin of discretion, should be applied....

.....however Wilkie erred in his interpretation of the test regarding proportionality and that he made ‘egregious’ errors in his rationale ....as such this aspect of his judgement is not consistent and should fail

C - Mr Wilkie regarded the case of Seldon as key in this case.... we argue his interpretation is incomparable with ECJ authorities

ashfords.co.uk/news-and-event…

C outlines 7 key aspects of the governments stance....

1/ These are not challenges tomthe pension schemes themselves....these are challenges to the transitional protections only

2/ even if no transitional protections (TP) at all the changes would still have impacted on younger members who would still accrue less generous pension provision and still have to work longer

3/ TP were not put in place to save money. They were put in place do to a sense of moral responsibility....to protect those closest to retirement....it was the right thing to do

4/ there is undisputed evidence that the decision to provide TP was made at the highest levels of government

* note.... I think this is early statement to steer away from fact TP were introduced to pressure from unions

5/ the changes to public service pensions were made by enacting new legislation.

*note...ref to previous pension legislation which protecte some pensions from being made worse. new legislation requires all future contributions are paid in accordance with that act

6/ it is not in dispute that the funding made available for TP was ‘extra’ money.... in effect it wasn’t younger paying for protections of older... not a peter pays Paul scenario.

Judge Elias interjects by adding this doesn’t follow.... the money allocated could have been used to soften the blow for all instead of those closest to retirement... in this sense those younger have paid a price.

C - if money used was spread across all judges it would have provided all with 18mths protection.... if money was used to protect all it would cost 4 x the scheme cost or almost £90million

7/ the suggestion that the protections put in place should have protected the younger members would be completely wrong even though they lose the most in the long term

C - outlines the crux of Government claim is that it is allowed a broad margin of discretion when setting social policy objectives & morale political aims are social policy

Judges are questioning if this argument was advanced in the judges initial tribunal in front of judge Williams....they note it seems to have been adapted later on

C argues that the mention of ‘the right thing to do’ in Mr Kelly’s statement (from the treasury) is defence to the moral decision

Judges also question the evidence around legitimate expectations that those closest to retirement should be protected.... Mr C says no...this is a moral choice

Focus so far is to if the above arguments were put before Mr Williams.... if not it would be perverse to argue he made wrong interpretation about the governments justification

Justice Rimer says mr Kelly’s statement explains the policy but not the reasons as to why....

The afternoon was take up referring to various paragraphs in previous judgements and how they relate to other authorities, both domestic and ECJ...
I’ll provide a list later today.

Once again there is no tweeting/reporting during the case but I’ll try and update at lunch.

Think the first hour or two will be government closing with Mr Short QC to follow.....