Christie v Department for Constitutional Affairs

EAT: Elias J (President): 23 July 2007

The claimant, a retired fee-paid part-time chairman of a social security appeal tribunal, claimed that he was a "worker" within the definition in regulation 2(1) of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 and, as such, was entitled to pension rights on a pro-rata basis with full-time salaried chairmen pursuant to regulation 5. An employment tribunal decided, on a preliminary issue of law, that as a holder of a judicial office remunerated on a daily fee-paid basis the claimant was clearly excluded from the Regulations by virtue of regulation 17 and that Community law, and Directive 97/81/EC in particular, did not require a different construction.

The claimant appealed.

ELIAS J (PRESIDENT) held:
There was no concept of "worker" which had to be applied to all cases where it arose in the context of Community law, and both recital (16) of Directive 97/81/EC and clause 2 of the framework agreement annexed to it envisaged that the meaning to be given to an employment relationship would be left to each member state. The discretion accordingly conferred on the United Kingdom by the Directive, while necessarily involving some limitation, afforded a reasonable leeway in defining who was a "worker", and a minor limitation, such as the exclusion of a certain limited category of part-time judicial officers by regulation 17 of the 2000 Regulations, was consistent with that discretion. Therefore, the 2000 Regulations did not apply to the claimant.

The appeal was dismissed.

Appearances: Ramby de Mello and Adrian Berry (Direct Access Scheme) for the claimant; John Cavanagh QC (Treasury Solicitor) for the department.