§945 Art. 145. Annuities for Judges and Survivors

Summary

People who finish a term as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces can get a special retirement annuity when they leave federal civilian service. If they keep serving as a senior judge, they are treated as still in service until that senior service ends. To get this annuity they must choose it instead of any other federal civilian retirement benefit. That choice cannot be changed. When someone makes that choice, the Secretary of Defense must tell the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM figures the person’s lump-sum credit and asks the Treasury to move that money from the Civil Service fund to the Department of Defense Military Retirement Fund. Interest on that lump sum is figured using the rates in section 8334(e)(3) of title 5, and finishing 5 years (or more) of civilian service does not stop interest from being included. The annuity equals 80 percent of the pay for an active judge on that court at the time the person leaves. Rights to the Thrift Savings Plan are not affected. The Secretary of Defense must set up rules for survivor and former-spouse annuities that are, as much as possible, like other federal civilian survivor plans. The program may allow reducing the judge’s annuity to pay survivor benefits. The Secretary must also make cost-of-living increases similar to other federal systems. If a person who already gets this annuity later becomes a United States judge or justice with life tenure and then retires, that person may choose at retirement to take either this annuity or the annuity/salary from the later judicial service (the choice is final). An election to take the later annuity ends any prior survivor annuity elections under this program. Finally, people who had Civil Service service before becoming such a judge can make the special FERS election under section 301(a)(2) of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act of 1986 as if their appointment counted as reemployment.