The Courts (Compensation to Officers) Regulations 1971

Compensation payable to widow or dependants of a claimant

26.—(1) Payments in accordance with this regulation and regulations 27 and 28 shall be made to or for the benefit of the widow, child or other dependant or to the personal representatives of a person to whom this Part of these Regulations applies or, as the case may be, to trustees empowered by such a person to stand possessed of any benefit under his last relevant pension scheme.

(2) If the widow, child or other dependant of that person might have become entitled but for the loss of his employment to a pension under his last relevant pension scheme, the widow, child or other dependant, as the case may be, shall be entitled to receive—

(a) where the pension scheme provides for a prescribed proportion, an annual sum equal to the prescribed proportion of any retirement compensation by way of annual amounts payable to the person under regulation 20, 21 or 22 immediately before his death or, if he dies before becoming entitled to receive compensation under any of those regulations, the prescribed proportion of the compensation by way of annual amounts which he would have received under regulation 21 had he become entitled thereto immediately before his death, and

(b) where the pension scheme does not provide for a prescribed proportion, such an annual sum as is provided by paragraph (3):

Provided that—

(i) where any retirement compensation has been surrendered under regulation 19(5) or compounded under regulation 36, any sum payable under sub-paragraph (a) shall be calculated as if such surrender or compounding had not taken place, and

(ii) in calculating the sum payable under sub-paragraph (a) it shall be assumed that the retirement compensation payable, or which would have been payable, to a person under regulation 20, 21 or 22 had been such sum as would have been payable if the accrued pension or accrued incapacity pension had not been reduced by reason of the provisions of any Act relating to National Insurance.

(3) The sum mentioned in paragraph (2)(b) shall be an annual sum equal to the annual amount of the pension (calculated in the manner specified in paragraph (4)) to which the widow, child or other dependant of the person in question would have become entitled if he had died immediately before the date on which he suffered the loss of employment, having then complied with any requirements of the last relevant pension scheme as to a minimum period of qualifying service or contribution and completed any additional contributory payments or payments in respect of added years which he was then in the course of making.

(4) The calculation referred to in paragraph (3) shall be made on the basis of the method prescribed by the last relevant pension scheme of the person in question for the calculation of benefits for a widow, child or other dependant and in so far as the age at which he died is relevant for the purposes of the said calculation, the date on which he died shall be taken to be the actual date of his death, the provisions of paragraph (3) to the contrary notwithstanding.

(5) Any annual sum payable to or for the benefit of a widow, child or other dependant under this regulation shall cease to be payable in any circumstances in which a corresponding pension under the last relevant pension scheme would have ceased to be payable; and where that scheme provides for payment of the pension to any person on behalf of a child or other dependant, any annual sum payable under this regulation to a child or other dependant shall be paid to that person on behalf of the child or dependant in the like manner and for the like period as is provided in the pension scheme.

(6) Except where the compensation has been reduced under regulation 24, compensation payable under this regulation and regulation 27 shall in the aggregate be reduced by an amount the capital value whereof is equal to the amount of any superannuation contributions as defined in regulation 24(2) returned to the person in respect of whom the compensation is payable and either not paid to the compensating authority or repaid to that person by the compensating authority, the compensation under each such regulation being reduced in proportion to the capital value of each amount.

(7) If the person in question suffered a diminution of emoluments, then—

(a) where his last relevant pension scheme provides for a prescribed proportion, the provisions of paragraph (2)(a) shall apply with the substitution of references to diminution of emoluments for references to loss of employment, and the annual sum payable to a widow, child or other dependant of such a person shall be calculated as if he had suffered loss of employment and as if the loss of emoluments occasioned thereby had been equivalent to the amount of the diminution:

Provided that no sum shall be payable under this sub-paragraph—

(i) if the emoluments have been diminished by less than 2½ per cent; or

(ii) if the person had continued to pay superannuation contributions as if his emoluments had not been diminished:

and

(b) where the said scheme does not provide for a prescribed proportion, the provisions of paragraph (2)(b) and of regulation 33(4)(a) shall apply with the substitution of references to diminution of emoluments for the references to loss of employment and of a reference to employment in which he has suffered such a diminution for the reference to employment which he has lost:

Provided that no sum shall be payable under this sub-paragraph if the sum calculated thereunder amounts to less than 2½ per cent of such sum as would have been payable had the person in question suffered a loss of employment instead of a diminution of emoluments.

(8) In this regulation “prescribed proportion” means the proportion which, by the provisions contained in the last relevant pension scheme of a person to whom this Part of these Regulations applies, the pension payable to his widow, child or other dependant is to bear to that person's pension.