Mary Teresa Magorrian and Irene Patricia Cunningham were employed as nurses in the mental health sector in Northern Ireland. In October 1992 and April 1994, respectively, they entered retirement after completing more than twenty years service.
Under the applicable rules, full-time service in that sector enabled the persons concerned to acquire the status of Mental Health Officer (MHO), which gave those persons entitlement to certain additional pension benefits. Mrs Magorrian and Mrs Cunningham commenced their careers working full-time with MHO status. When their family responsibilities increased, they both worked part-time and therefore lost that status. On their retirement, they did not receive the additional benefits to which they would have been entitled if they had had MHO status at the time of their retirement.
They therefore brought the matter before the Office of the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal, Belfast, which in an initial judgment found that the exclusion of part-time psychiatric nurses from MHO status constituted unjustified indirect discrimination based on sex. Before giving final judgment, the national court referred to the Court of Justice a number of questions on the interpretation of the provisions of the EC Treaty concerning equal pay.
The national court essentially asked the Court to determine the date as from which the periods of service of workers who have suffered such discrimination are to be taken into account for the purpose of calculating the additional benefits to which they are entitled, and whether a national procedural time-limit limiting the claimants' entitlement to full membership of a pensions scheme to a period of two years preceding commencement of proceedings was consistent with Community law.
In reply, the Court, applying settled case-law, reaffirmed that entitlement to receive a retirement pension under an occupational scheme is indissolubly linked to the right to join such a scheme. That principle also applies to access to a special scheme which confers entitlement to additional benefits.
So, for the purposes of calculating additional benefits for workers who have suffered indirect discrimination based on sex, periods of service must be taken into account as from 8 April 1976, the date of the judgment in Defrenne, in which the Court held that the principle of equal pay may be relied on by individuals before national courts.
The United Kingdom rules also provided that the right to be admitted to a pension scheme providing additional benefits could have effect only for a period of two years before the date of commencement of proceedings. The national court therefore also asked the Court to rule whether such a restriction could preclude a claim based on Community law.
On that point the Court made it clear that Mrs Magorrian and Mrs Cunningham were not claiming the retroactive award of certain additional benefits but recognition of entitlement to full membership of the scheme applicable to MHOs and entitlement to additional benefits flowing from that status. Consequently, a rule which limited that possibility of membership was likely to strike at the very essence of the rights conferred by the Community legal order and thus, by limiting in time the direct effect of Article 119 of the EC Treaty, rendered any action by individuals relying on Community law impossible in practice.
Solely for media use - unofficial document not binding on the Court of Justice
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