CABLE: Current Awareness Bulletin - August 2017

Clyde & Co's UK employment team brings you CABLE, a monthly bulletin keeping you up to date with recent legal developments.

Tribunal Fees

R (on the application of UNISON) (Appellant) v Lord Chancellor (Respondent) [2017] UKSC 51 - Supreme Court quashes employment tribunal fees

The introduction of employment tribunal and employment appeal tribunal (EAT) fees has seen a dramatic and persistent fall in the number of claims brought. UNISON, the trade union, has successfully challenged the lawfulness of the fee regime by way of judicial review.

The Supreme Court found that such a sharp drop in the number of claims warranted the conclusion that a significant number of people have found the fees to be unaffordable. Further, the fees charged could, in some cases, make it futile or irrational to bring a claim, given that some claimants seek modest or no financial awards. The Supreme Court concluded that the fee regime effectively prevented access to justice, and although there were legitimate aims that supported the introduction of the regime, it had not been shown that the fees charged were the least intrusive means of achieving those aims. As a result, the fee regime was unlawful from the outset and the law imposing it should be quashed.

PRACTICAL POINT

Fees are no longer payable in employment tribunals and the EAT and the government has announced that fees paid since their introduction in 2014 will be reimbursed. It remains to be seen whether a new fee regime will be introduced in the future, but until then, fees cannot be imposed.

Click here for a detailed update on this decision.

Pension benefits

Walker v Innospec Limited and others [2017] UKSC 47 - Supreme Court equalises pension benefits for same sex spouses.

The Supreme Court has ruled that same sex couples in marriages or civil partnerships should be granted the same survivor pension benefits as heterosexual spouses.

Same sex unions were legalised on 5 December 2005, and subsequently same sex marriages were recognised by the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. However, an exemption in the Equality Act 2010 provided an exception to the prohibition on sexual orientation discrimination that allowed benefit accrual for a survivor's benefit for a same sex spouse to be based on service from 5 December 2005 onwards.

A scheme member wanted reassurance that his partner, who he had entered into a civil partnership with after he retired in 2003, would receive his pension in the same way as a...