Tribunal procedures

A number of recent Court of Appeal rulings have laid down rules of procedure that tribunals must follow. Some of these arise because of the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 that gives citizens the right to a fair trial.

The court says that an applicant must be given an adjournment, if requested, provided that the applicant's inability to be present is genuine and satisfies the tribunal to that effect. In cases where a party to a tribunal hearing is seeking an adjournment on the basis of stress or anxiety they have to produce details of the symptoms, causes and severity of their condition.

However, the court has also held that it is not a breach of the 1998 Act if a barrister acting for one side has also sat as a part-time tribunal chair on a panel which includes one or more of the lay tribunal members in the case in question.

As far as the rulings of employment tribunals are concerned, the EAT has held that, as a minimum, a tribunal must explain how it got from its findings to its conclusions. In this way the parties have some idea of how the decision was arrived at.

* Teinaz v LB Wandsworth [2002] IRLT 721; Andreou v Lord Chancellor's Department [2002] IRLR 728; Lawal v Northern Spirit [2002] IRLR 714; Tran v Greenwich Vietnam Community [2002] IRLR 735