The Constitutional Court yesterday confirmed a judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court and dismissed an application filed by a large number of port workers and the heirs of deceased port workers who had retired prior to 2003.

The port workers, whose names covered 11 pages of the judgment, had claimed that they had been discriminated against because a gratuity issued from the Pensions Fund was only paid to those port workers who had retired since 2003.

But the First Hall of the Civil Court had dismissed the port workers' application and ruled that there were other remedies available to them at law.

On appeal the Constitutional Court noted that the application had been filed by port workers who had retired from work between 1973 and 2003.

They told the court that in 1990 and 1997 the sub-committee representing the port workers' interests had requested the government to issue a gratuity from the Pensions Fund.

In those two years, the gratuity had been distributed to all port workers, even those who had retired, and to their heirs. In 2003 the government had decided to issue a gratuity of Lm500 per year but only to those port workers who had retired since March 1 of that year.

The port workers claimed that the gratuity had not been issued on a retroactive basis to those workers who had retired before that date. This, said the port workers, was unjust and discriminatory, for those port workers who had contributed most funds to the Pension and Contingency Fund were to receive less than colleagues who had contributed less than them.

On appeal the Constitutional Court found that there was no reason to overturn the judgment of the first court. The port workers were not attacking the constitutional validity of any law. On the contrary, they had asked the courts to consider the validity of an administrative decision.

The law envisaged a procedure to attack an administrative decision, but this had not been utilised by the port workers. A decision to distribute a gratuity fell within the definition of an administrative decision. The appeal was therefore dismissed.