A re­tired fire of­fi­cer has suf­fered a fi­nal de­feat in his le­gal bat­tle over be­ing al­leged­ly by­passed for pro­mo­tion based on vary­ing stances on the ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of his post­grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

De­liv­er­ing a ma­jor­i­ty judg­ment yes­ter­day, four out of five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil ruled that the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal was wrong to have up­held Ian Green’s case against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) af­ter it was dis­missed by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad in late 2016.

Sir An­tho­ny Smellie de­liv­ered a dis­sent­ing judg­ment in which he ruled that the lo­cal ap­peal court could not be fault­ed.