The Supreme Court declared that the statutory rule disqualifying prisoners from receiving the State Pension Contributory was invalid, but dismissed the appellant’s claim for damages or compensation.
In a judgment dated 28 November 2018, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said section 249(1)(b) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005 imposed an additional punishment on prisoners. The imposition of punishment was a matter for the judiciary, and the provision therefore unlawfully intruded into that role under Articles 34 and 38.1 of the Constitution.
The declaration took effect from the date of the judgment. It did not affect the custodial part of the appellant’s sentence. The court’s earlier principal judgment had found the provision constitutionally flawed; this judgment followed further submissions on the wording and consequences of the declaration.
The ruling was limited to the prisoner disqualification in section 249(1)(b). The court did not decide the constitutionality of other disqualification provisions or regulations, or find that the provision breached the constitutional guarantee of equality. It also did not find that the appellant had a personal constitutional right to the pension. Any statutory entitlement remained subject to the conditions set out in the legislation.
The appellant sought damages or other redress for the period in which the disqualification applied. The judgment said a declaration of invalidity does not, by itself, create an entitlement to damages. In this case, the court found no personal constitutional right had been infringed in a way that directly caused legally measurable loss. It also considered the outcome of a judicial assessment of pension eligibility at the time of sentencing uncertain.
The judgment noted that the Minister had offered the appellant €7,500 as compensation or redress after the principal judgment. It did not treat that offer as establishing an entitlement. The court dismissed the claim for damages or compensation and held that the appellant was entitled only to the declaration.
The court also discussed deferred declarations and the possible effects of invalidity on past decisions and transactions. MacMenamin J. said, as an obiter observation, that declarations of invalidity should generally be prospective. He stressed that these broader observations did not determine the outcome of the appeal, which rested on the absence of a personal constitutional right and the damages principles considered in the judgment.