The group has filed a review application in the Court of Appeal, claiming bias on the part of one of the three judges who allowed the government’s appeal.
In their motion, filed two weeks ago and sighted by FMT, the applicants are asking for a fresh Court of Appeal bench to set aside the March 3 judgment.
The application has been scheduled for case management next week.
The applications claim the Court of Appeal has jurisdiction under Rule 105 of the Court of Appeal Rules 1994 to rectify an injustice or abuse of process.
In her affidavit in support, former foreign ministry officer Aminah Ahmad argued that the ruling must be overturned as it created a real risk of judicial bias.
“This occasioned a breach of the rules of justice and rendered the decision unsafe,” she said.
In particular, she argued that one member of the bench previously expressed a dissenting view on a substantially similar point of law, yet failed to disclose this to the parties beforehand.
“The failure to disclose such prior judicial position deprived the applicants of the opportunity to raise an objection or seek a recusal,” she said.
The appeal was heard and decided by bench chairman Justice Lim Chong Fong, Justice Azhahari Kamal Ramli, and Justice Meor Hashimi Abdul Hamid.
Azhahari, who delivered the unanimous decision of the bench, said the government was not compelled to adjust the pensions of former civil servants under a 2016 service circular.
He said the issue was already settled by a previous Court of Appeal ruling in 2022.
The applicants have filed for leave to appeal the decision to the Federal Court.
To date, no written grounds have been issued by the Court of Appeal.
Azhahari held that the judicial review brought by the 57 applicants was res judicata – having already been adjudicated by a competent court – and therefore could not be pursued further, as it constituted an abuse of the court process.
In its 2022 decision, the Court of Appeal annulled amendments made to the Pension Adjustment Act 1980 (PAA) in 2013, which introduced a flat 2% annual increment for retirees.
The court held that the 2013 amendments were unconstitutional as they placed civil service retirees in a less favourable position, contrary to Article 147 of the Federal Constitution.
Aminah and the other applicants subsequently filed the present judicial review, seeking a High Court order to compel the government to adjust their pensions based on the pre-2013 formula under the PAA.
Under the pre-2013 formula, pensions were revised in line with salary adjustments for serving civil servants.
In January 2023, the High Court allowed the application, leading to the present appeal. However, the order was stayed pending the outcome of the appeal.