Christie v Department for Constitutional Affairs and Another
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judgment Date | 23 July 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] UKEAT 0140_07_2307 |
| Date | 23 July 2007 |
| Court | Employment Appeal Tribunal |
Employment Appeal Tribunal
Before Mr Justice Elias, President.
Part-time fee-paid tribunal chairmen were not workers and were not entitled to a pension.
Mr Justice Elias, President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, so held sitting alone when dismissing an appeal by the claimant, Mr Ronald Christie, from a decision of a Cardiff employment tribunal in February, that as a matter of domestic law he was excluded from pension rights by the Part Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (SI 2000 No 1551) and that European law did not require them to be construed differently.
Mr Ramby de Mello and Mr Adrian Berry, instructed by direct access, for Mr Christie; Mr John Cavanagh, QC, for the Department for Constitutional Affairs.
MR JUSTICE ELIAS said that the claimant was a fee-paid part-time chairman of the National Insurance and Social Security Tribunals until 2005.
His appointment was by the Lord Chancellor although the Department for Work and Pensions had administrative responsibility for the tribunals which he chaired.
There were also full-time and part-time salaried chairmen who had pensionable service.
The difference between part-time salaried and part-time fee-paid chairmen was that the former were obliged to sit on days agreed in advance whereas the latter could choose whether to work on a particular day.
The aim of the 2000 Regulations was to ensure part-time workers were not treated less favourably than full-time workers either in relation to the terms of their contract or by being subjected to any other detriment.
Regulation 12 made those regulations applicable to workers in Crown employment; regulation 17 excluded any individual in his capacity as the holder of a judicial office if he was remunerated on a daily fee-paid basis. The 2000 Regulations were designed to implement the Part-Time Workers Framework Directive (97/81/EC) (OJ 1989 L14/9).
Mr de Mello had conceded that if it were simply a matter of domestic law the claimant would not be able to bring himself within the statutory provisions. The natural construction of regulation 17 would exclude him.
The issues were: was there a single concept of "worker" which had been...
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