About 4,500 serving and retired members of the RUC Reserve suffered a setback in the Court of Appeal in Belfast yesterday in a case involving their pension entitlements.
In a test case it was held that they were not entitled to have their pensions backdated beyond 1988 to the time they joined the force.
The court dismissed an appeal brought by Mr Archibald Harvey Croft, a retired reservist, against the rejection of an application for judicial review.
The case was supported by the Police Federation. In a statement afterwards their solicitor, Ms Dorcas Crawford, said the decision was a "grave disappointment."
Many of the 4,500 reservists affected by it had served in the front line since the early 1970s.
"Simply because they wore the letter R on their shoulder they are denied the benefit of a pension for their years of service prior to 1988," she said.
"Mr Croft is a typical example of this extreme injustice, having served for a period of 21 years, of which 16 years have been totally disregarded."
She said the federation would consider whether to appeal the matter to the House of Lords.
Lord Justice MacDermott said he could not support the claim that in choosing to introduce pensions for reservists from 1988 the Secretary of State was acting so unreasonably, so unfairly and so unjustly that his decision should be condemned.
The judge added: "The decision to backdate was very much an act of grace on the part of the Secretary of State, who was seeking to be fair and to reflect that though pension rights had not been bought, justice required that men who had given much good service - albeit on short-term contracts with no pension provisions - should receive something in return by way of a pension."