Employment Tribunal - you CAN win !!!

[mortlake]

Are his initials G-Z and is he on the South London circuit?

 

My guess is that society generally, and government courtiers in particular, are getting more snobby and less interested in equality before the law.

 

Options:

 

• Appeal. But my judge was careful to cover his tracks, making it look as though most of the claim was out of time and not letting me know what was going-on until he made his judgement. You could check your judge's name for previous appeals against his judgements on BAILII - United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal (easiest) Employment Appeal Tribunal > Search Judgments (most up to date). If your case is finished and you are wondering whether to appeal, it might look a stronger case if your judge has had his judgements overturned for the same reason before. And if you're still at the first hearing, the judge might give more time to issues where he's scared of a second appeal being made against his judgement for the same reason as before.
  
• Sanity check your case with Which legal services, who are only £12 a quarter and will discuss a case from before you joined-up. They might help find the wood for the trees and help you rehearse an argument a bit. Also sanity check grounds for appeal and whether there's much chance of costs against.
  

 

• It sounds like there's no time left and the hearing is over, but if not there might be a no-win no-fee employment lawyer close to the tribunal who is willing to sit-in with you and discuss your case in the waiting room, giving advice as you go but letting you do the talking in the tribunal. The lawyer can then claim standard extra fees from the other side if you win and has only lost a day or so if you loose. And the judge might not take advantage so much if there is a witness. I don't know if this is common but have heard of trades union lawyers doing-it. If a lawyer can't come then any witness might make the judge less willing to cut corners.
  

 

• If you can't appeal, complain to the regional chairman perhaps getting an MP to forward a letter. I got an extremely rude response from the man but a very careful and detailed response from the judge himself, so it shook them up a bit. There was even some attempt at giving me a time limit to go to the government's new quango for dealing with judges who do strange things - sorry I forget what it's called.
  

Would be interested to read how it went. Some employers have got nothing better to do than plot constuctive dismissals. The last thing anyone wants next is a judge who doesn't believe they exist and has probably never done an ordinary job in his life.

 

Good luck!

John ( j o h n a t e m p l o y e e s o r g u k )

Edited July 20, 2008 by mortlake
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[mortlake]

Almond: If it wasn't for the recession I'd suggest laundering your CV: taking the reasons for leaving off your CV (maybe mentioning it in an agency interview but not in the CV you write), somehow getting a few bits of temp work or self employment, until eventually no new employer will bother taking a reference off the one you sued. Hope your line of work is one in which this is still possible.

 

BunnyBoo: Saddened by your post without knowing an answer. I tried going to an MP but she just forwarded letters everywhere without reading them and got either no response or a sarcastic response wherever. I don't think the read the letters inbound or outbound and I just didn't have time to follow it up. The letter from the South London Circuit person who's chief tribunal chair was sarcastic "unable to understand ... constituent appears to have misunderstood purpose of tribunal ... please convey this to your constituent ... etc". MP was more interested in the tiny minority of consituents who are called "local people" and campaign against shops, planes, housing, mobile phone masts etc. I suppose it might be more possible with her help to get more detailed reasons for judgement and at least make this chair think about her actions a bit more clearly. Apparently the Freedom of Information Act doesn't apply to judges notes because it might "undermine confidence"!

 

I wish I had done a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how many people sue this company before seeing her: I might have interested her more and a contact might do it anyway, just out of curiosity.

 

There is meant to be a new compaints system for chairs / judges who act in a bizarre way. I haven't tracked it down and it's probably more aimed at judges who are drunk or such than ones who mis-handle cases. As for appeal, you could try Which Legal Services' advice for how to work the system. The system sounds like one geared to getting through cases as quickly as possible, staffed by people used to too much power who sometimes don't believe that employers can spend so much time lying and scheming against hard working employees.

 

I signed something to say that I shouldn't mention an old employer, but I met an old colleague recently from Alcohol Recovery Project who had a similar experience, firstly on all points being ruled out of time without the right questions being asked and then on an appeals system designed to fob-off and discourage any attempt at appeal. He tells me that he thinks the company have plotted unfair dismissals against one person after another - basically everyone, even if there were perfectly fair ways to dismiss them or at the other extreme if they were the most productive employee in town.

 

Hope that your attempts to seek justice and others like them have a good effect on the world nevertheless and glad to hear that people like you have done so much work to make things better.

 

Oh: just Googled:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2091909.ece and

http://www.judicialcomplaints.gov.uk/

- a distraction from appeal and a second stage of complaint, but maybe interesting to someone who reads this thread. First stage might be a request for notes made at the time, possibly forwarded by an MP.

 

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Edited February 12, 2009 by mortlake
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