PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal by the government and three others to overturn a High Court ruling that favoured 50 retired Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) personnel in a pension adjustment dispute.
In a unanimous decision on Wednesday (June 4), the three-member panel chaired by Justice Datuk Hashim Hamzah ruled that the military personnel failed to prove that the government, prime minister, defence minister and MAF Council had breached provisions under the Federal Constitution.
"We find there is merit in the defendants’ appeal that warranted appellate intervention,” said Justice Hashim, who sat with Justices Datuk Wong Kian Kheong and Datuk Ismail Brahim.
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The judge said the defendants cannot be said to have breached Article 147 of the Federal Constitution as they had not placed the plaintiffs in a less favourable position.
The court allowed the appeal with no orders as to legal costs.
Justice 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 on salary adjustment but amendments to the terms of service for serving members of the MAF.
He said that the objective was to improve the salary scheme for serving members and not to discriminate against retirees who left service before Jan 1, 2013.
Wong also said there was no unequal treatment between pensioners who retired before and those who retired after Jan 1, 2013, as pension adjustments were not made for retirees after that date that year.
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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 that date.
The 50 personnel of various ranks filed an originating summons in the High Court on Nov 17, 2022, seeking a declaration that the government had violated provisions in the Constitution read together with Section 187 of the MAF Act 1972 for their respective failures to implement new pension adjustments for those 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 Wednesday’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 or not to bring the matter to the Federal Court. – Bernama
