Court of Appeal allows government’s appeal in Armed Forces pension adjustment case

PUTRAJAYA — The Court of Appeal today allowed the appeal by the government and three others to overturn a High Court’s ruling that had previously favoured 50 retired Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) personnel in a pension adjustment dispute.

In a unanimous decision, the three-member panel chaired by Justice Datuk Hashim Hamzah ruled that the military personnel failed to prove that the Malaysian Government, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the Malaysian Armed Forces Council had breached the provisions under the Federal Constitution.

“We find there is merit in the defendants’ appeal that warranted appellate intervention,” said Hashim, who sat with Justices Datuk Wong Kian Kheong and Datuk Ismail Brahim.

The judge said the defendants cannot be said to be breaching Article 147 of the Federal Constitution as they have not placed the plaintiffs in a less favourable position.

The court allowed the appeal with no orders as to legal costs.

Wong, who wrote a supporting judgment, said two documents namely Garis Panduan Pelaksanaan Pindaan Syarat-Syarat Perkhidmatan ATM dated Jan 17, 2013, and Surat Pelaksanaan Kesetaraan Pangkat dan Penambahbaikan Jadual Gaji Minimum Maksimum bagi Perkhidmatan ATM di bawah SSM dated March 14, 2013, were not salary adjustment but were amendments to the terms of service for serving members of the MAF.

He said that the objective is to improve the salary scheme for serving members and not to discriminate against retirees who retired before Jan 1, 2013.

Wong also said that there was no unequal treatment between pensioners who retired before Jan 1 and those who retired after Jan 1, 2013, as pension adjustments were not made for retirees after Jan 1 that year.

On Feb 5 last year, the High Court ruled that all military personnel who retired before Jan 1, 2013, are entitled to have their pensions adjusted to the rates and methods applied to the retirees who retired after Jan 1, 2013.

The 50 military personnels of various ranks filed an originating summons in the High Court on Nov 17, 2022, seeking a declaration that the government had violated the provisions in Federal Constitution read together with Section 187 of the MAF Act 1972 for their respective failures to implement new pension adjustments for the MAF retirees who retired before Jan 1, 2013.

They claimed that the government’s failures to implement the pension adjustments had caused a significant pension gap between the MAF retirees who retired before Jan 1 and those who retired after Jan 1, 2013.

In today’s proceedings, Federal Counsel M. Kogilambigai appeared for the government while lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla represented the retired personnel.

After the court proceeding, Haniff Khatri told reporters that he would study the court’s grounds of judgment before deciding whether to bring the matter up to the Federal Court. — BERNAMA