21Retrospective operation of decisions

21 Retrospective operation of decisions

(1) Where a decision is made by the Commission, the Board or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act, other than a decision referred to in subsection (1A), granting a pension, increasing or reducing the rate of a pension or granting an allowance or another pecuniary benefit, a date, which may be a date before the commencing date, may be fixed, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Veterans’ Entitlements Act, as the date as from which payment of the pension, payment of the pension at the increased or reduced rate or payment of the allowance or other benefit is approved. (1A) Where: (a) a decision is made by the Commission, the Board or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (in this subsection called the determining body) under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act to grant a pension, to increase or reduce the rate of a pension or to grant an allowance or other pecuniary benefit; and (b) the determining body, would not have had power to make that decision but for the operation of a provision of this Act whether that provision conferred power on the determining body directly or indirectly; then a date, which may be a date before the commencement date, may, subject to subsection (3), be fixed as the date from which payment of a pension at a reduced or increased rate or payment of an allowance or other benefit is approved. (2) For the purpose of the application of subsection (1): (a) any decision of the Board to which section 107VY of the Repatriation Act applied immediately before the commencing date; and (b) any decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to which section107VZZ of the Repatriation Act so applied; shall continue to be binding on the parties to the proceedings for the remainder of the period for which it was binding under that section. (3) The date which may be fixed under subsection (1A) in relation to a decision referred to in that subsection is: (a) where the initiating action in relation to the decision was the making of an application as mentioned in paragraph (h) of the definition of 'initiating action' in subsection (5)—the date of that initiating action; or (aa) where the decision is made on review of a decision made on or after 1 January 1985 by the Commission about the rate at which pension is payable to a person, where the Repatriation Review Tribunal had previously, on application under section 107VC of the Repatriation Act 1920 as in force before 1 January 1985, granted the person’s claim for pension—a date that is not earlier than the operative date set by the Repatriation Review Tribunal in relation to the grant of the claim for pension; or (ab) where the decision is made on review of a decision made on or after 1 January 1985 by the Commission about the rate at which pension is payable to a person, where the Repatriation Review Tribunal had referred the matter to the Commission under section 107VJ of the Repatriation Act 1920 as in force before 1 January 1985—a date that is not earlier than the date of that reference; or (b) in any other case-a date that is not earlier than 3 months before the date of the initiating action in relation to the decision. (4) For the purposes of the application of the Veterans’ Entitlements Act pursuant to this section, section 19 of that Act has effect as if the reference, in the definition of 'assessment period' in subsection 19(9) of that Act, to the period starting on the application day were a reference to the period starting on the date of the initiating action in relation to the decision concerned. (5) In this section: