| PENSIONS — Appeal tribunal — Notification requirements — Appeals from Secretary of State for Defence’s decisions on war pensions claims — Requirements for notification of rights of appeal and of time limits — Consequences of failure to comply with notification requirements — Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943, ss 8, 9
Secretary of State for Defence v Pensions Appeal Tribunal
QBD: Stanley Burnton J: 18 May 2007
Notification requirements contained in s 9 of the Pensions Appeals Tribunals Act 1943 relating to rights of appeal from decisions of the Secretary of State for Defence on war pensions claims made pursuant to the Naval, Military and Air Forces etc (Disablement and Death) Service Pensions Order 1983, and to the time limits for such appeals, did not require the provision of a single document but could be fulfilled by the provision of a letter enclosing a leaflet to which reference was made,.nor was it necessary to state the date on which the time limit for the bringing of an appeal expired. Provided the information was reasonably clear, a notice specifying that notice of appeal must be given within a specified period of a specified date sufficed. A failure to comply strictly with the requirements of s 9 did not preclude the relevant time limits for appeals from starting to run.
Stanley Burnton J so held in the Queen’s Bench Division when allowing eight claims by the Secretary of State for Defence for judicial review of decisions of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal to treat appeals by the interested parties, who were all former members of the armed forces, as having been commenced in the time permitted by the applicable legislation and delegated legislation.
Appeals from decisions of the Secretary of State for Defence on claims for disability pensions under the 1983 Order (now governed by the Naval, Military and Air Forces etc (Disablement and Death) Service Pensions Order 2006) lay to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal established by the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943, as amended. S 8(1), as amended, provided for primary time limits for bringing appeals and the Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Late Appeals) Regulations 2001, made pursuant to s 8(5) of the 1943 Act, as inserted, prescribing circumstances whereby the time limit could be extended (“the secondary time limit”). By reg 4(a)(iii) the tribunal could consider a late appeal out of time in the case of “failure on the part of the Secretary of State to notify the claimant of the decision”. S 9 of the 1943 Act required, inter alia, that any notices sent under the Act had to be in writing and, “in the case of a notice of a decision from which an appeal lies to the tribunal, shall specify that fact and the time within which and the manner in which notice of such an appeal must be given.”
Issues arose as to the requirements of section 9 of the 1943 Act, and whether full compliance with those requirements was a pre-requisite for the commencement of the time limited for appeal to the tribunal.
STANLEY BURNTON J, allowing each of the claims and quashing each of the tribunal’s decisions on its own facts, said that the requirements of s 9 did not have to be satisfied in a single document; it was sufficient if the information was contained in a leaflet that was referred to in, and enclosed with, a letter. S 9 did not require the notice to specify the date by which notice of an appeal must be given, but “the time within which” it must be given. Provided the information provided was reasonably clear, a notice specifying that notice of appeal must be given within a specified period of a specified date sufficed. There was nothing inconsistent with the statutory requirement in a procedure whereby a notification leaflet gave two different time limits, one for interim decisions and one for entitlement decisions, provided that the letter of notification was sufficiently clear as to the kind of decision that had been made. If the reader could not reasonably ascertain from his letter or the enclosed leaflet what kind of decision had been made, and thus what was the time limit for appealing, s 9 had not been fully complied with. The 1943 Act did not expressly prescribe the consequences of a failure to comply with all of the requirements of s 9. The applicable principle of interpretation was that Parliament was to be presumed to have intended a reasonable, rather than an unreasonable, result. The object of Parliament, in enacting s 9, was clearly to ensure that claimants were effectively informed of their right to appeal to the tribunal. It was helpful to consider the Act in its original form, and to proceed to consider the consequences of its amendment. It would have been unreasonable to construe the Act in its unamended form as requiring strict compliance with s 9 before time for appealing to the tribunal could run: in such a case, the proviso to s 8 would apply as there would be reasonable excuse for the delay. On the amendments to the Act, the s 8 proviso was replaced by the 2001 Regulations. Parliament must be taken to have considered that if a claimant were sufficiently dissatisfied with a ministerial decision he would be able to ascertain his rights and exercise them within the extended period. The wording of reg 4(a)(iii) was curious in the extreme. Since the time to appeal could not start to run until a claimant had been notified of a decision (s 8(1)(3)), reg 4(a)(iii) could have no effect if construed literally. Meaning could be given to it if it were construed as applying to cases in which the Secretary of State had failed strictly to comply with the requirements of s 9. A failure to notify a claimant in writing of a decision meant that his time to appeal did not begin to run. However, an omission to inform him of the time limit for appealing would not do so. A claimant who was misled or confused by a notification that gave two time limits, and who as a result appealed after the expiration of one but before the expiration of another, should have his time extended under reg 4(a)(iii).It was clear, given the wording of s 8, that the tribunal had no power to hear an appeal which was submitted after the expiration of the secondary time limit, and it could only hear an appeal brought after the expiration of the primary time limit but before the expiration of the secondary time limit if the requirements of the 2001 Regulations were satisfied.
|
