PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has dismissed an application for leave to appeal by 50 retired Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) personnel seeking to overturn a ruling on pension adjustments.
A three-man bench comprising Court of Appeal president Justice Abu Bakar Jais and Federal Court judges Justice Azimah Omar and Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera made the ruling in a 2-1 majority decision, Bernama reported.
Delivering the majority decision, Justice Abu Bakar said the questions proposed by the applicants were not questions of law but were factual in nature.
He also said there were no plain errors in the Court of Appeal’s judgment, noting that the appellate court had provided extensive reasons for allowing the government’s appeal.
In dissenting, Justice Vazeer held that the retirees had met the threshold requirements under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and should have been granted leave to appeal.
This effectively maintains the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision in favour of the government.
On June 4 last year, the Court of Appeal three-man bench overturned the High Court’s earlier ruling, which held that MAF retirees who retired before Jan 1, 2013, were entitled to have their pensions adjusted to the rates and methods applied to the retirees, who retired after Jan 1, 2013.
The bench had allowed the appeals by the government, Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Malaysian Armed Forces Council to set aside the High Court’s decision. This prompted the retirees to seek leave to appeal to the Federal Court.
