Rights of Appeal
| Author | Andrew Bano |
| Pages | 205-215 |
Chapter 25
Rights of Appeal
THE PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS ACT 1943
25.1 Rights of appeal in respect of both war pensions and armed forces compensation decisions are conferred by the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943. In summary, the structure of the relevant provisions of the 1943 Act is as follows:
(i) Appeals against decisions on whether an injury was attributable to or aggravated by service, or whether death was due to service, are brought under section 1.
(ii) Appeals against the making of an interim assessment of disablement, or a final assessment of disablement, or against an assessment of the degree of disablement, are brought under section 5.
(iii) Appeals concerning additional war pensions benefits, known as supplementary allowances, are brought under section 5A of the 1943 Act, which was originally added by section 57 of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000.
(iv) The Armed Forces (Pensions and Compensation) Act 2004 amended section 5A of the 1943 Act to allow Armed Forces Compensation Scheme decisions to be designated specified decisions. Appeals against decisions made under the AFCS 2011 are therefore ‘specified decision’ appeals.
There is no right of appeal against a decision made under a dispensing instrument.
206 War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation – Law and Practice
ENTITLEMENT APPEALS
25.2 Appeals under section 1 of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943 are known as ‘entitlement appeals’. Section 1(1) and (2) deals with injury claims and section 1(3) and (3A) deals with claims in respect of death.
Injury claims
25.3 Section 1(1) and (2) of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943, so far as relevant, provides:
(1) Where any claim in respect of the disablement of any person ... is rejected by the Minister on the ground that the injury on which the claim is based—
(a) is not attributable to any relevant service; and
(b) does not fulfil the following conditions, namely, that it existed before or arose during any relevant service and has been and remains aggravated thereby;
the Minister shall notify the claimant of his decision, specifying that it is made on that ground, and thereupon an appeal shall lie to the appropriate tribunal[
on the issue whether the claim was rightly rejected on that ground.
(2) Where ... the injury on which the claim is based is accepted by the Minister as fulfilling the conditions specified in paragraph (b) of the last foregoing subsection but not as attributable to any relevant service, the Minister shall notify the claimant of his decision, specifying that the injury is so accepted, and thereupon an appeal shall lie to the appropriate tribunal on the issue whether the injury was attributable to such service.
25.4 Section 1(1) requires the decision-maker to consider first whether the injury in respect of which the claim has been made is attributable to service. If the injury is considered not to have been attributable to service, the decision-maker must then decide whether it was aggravated by service. If neither condition is satisfied, the claimant must be notified of the rejection of the claim. Under section 1(2), if the injury is found to have been aggravated by service but not attributable to service, the claimant must be notified accordingly and then has a right of appeal on the question of whether the injury ought to have been found to be attributable to service.
‘On that ground’
25.5 In CAF/656/2006,
Claims in respect of death
25.6 Section 1(3) and (3A) of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943 provides:
(3) Where any claim in...
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