Judgments

O'Brien v Ministry of Justice [2010] UKSC 34 - non-provision of pensions to part-time fee-paid judges

29/07/10

The Supreme Court has declined to express a 'concluded view' on whether or not judges fall within the definition of 'worker' in the Part-Time Workers Regulations so that part-time judges would (absent the specific exclusion for part-time, fee-paid judges in reg 17) qualify for protection under those Regulations. Instead, the SC has referred to the ECJ the questions of (1) whether it is for national law or European law to determine if judges are 'workers who have an employment contract or employment relationship' for the purposes of the Framework Agreement on Part-Time Workers; and (2) if they are workers, whether it is lawful for UK law to discriminate between part-time and full-time judges, or between different types of part-time judges.

John Cavanagh QC, Sarah Moore and Holly Stout represented the Ministry of Justice. The SC's judgment is available at: click here