England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Friday 21 December 2001

Friday 21 December 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY: I have adjourned this application once already. I do not propose to adjourn it again notwithstanding that, upon being called, Mr Toofanny has not appeared today. This is a case that has gone on far too long and all the indications are that Mr Toofanny is temporising quite unacceptably in bringing his own case, such as it may be, to a hearing.
2. The immediate ground of the application is the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, presided over by Mr Recorder Brian Langstaff QC, on 21 March 2001. On a preliminary hearing the EAT dismissed the applicant's appeal from an interlocutory order of an Employment Tribunal made on 29 January to the effect that the applicant's case, which is a discrimination case, be listed for directions on 29 March and go to a full hearing on the merits between 10-14 September.
3. I fear that one effect of Mr Toofanny's temporising in this court will have been that those dates of 10-14 September have now been lost. It is worth remembering that the purpose of Article 6, upon which Mr Toofanny relies, is to ensure that everybody, including the other side, has a prompt hearing guided by the same rules of fairness as Mr Toofanny himself is entitled to the benefit of.
4. There have been medical grounds connected with depression for Mr Toofanny's inability to attend. The Employment Tribunal when it made its directions ordered that any application for an adjournment on the ground of ill-health must be made in person by the applicant's doctor. When he went to the EAT, Mr Toofanny complained that the Employment Tribunal had made incorrect findings of fact, had failed to consider whether it could properly delay the directions hearing until July and had proceeded notwithstanding that he had written letters to the tribunal which would prejudice the tribunal against him.
5. As to those matters, the findings of fact upon which Mr Toofanny seeks to rely as incorrect are so trivial that they do not bear repetition; the Employment Tribunal had a duty to get on with the case with due regard to the interests not only of Mr Toofanny but of the respondents; and the letters written by Mr Toofanny are actually extremely polite letters (certainly by comparison with some of the correspondence which courts receive from litigants in person) and he has no reason whatever to fear that he has generated prejudice against himself: rather the contrary.
6. Before the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the applicant now says that further issues arose. He does not like the EAT's order that grounds be identified since he considers he has already done this. I do not agree: more precision was called for. He complains that the refusal of the EAT to postpone the appeal so that he could get legal representation was a breach of Article 6(1). The dates were such that Mr Toofanny had every opportunity to which he was lawfully entitled to secure representation. He has never shown any sign of doing so. Remission to another tribunal was not going to be necessary or, indeed, even appropriate. The tribunal seised of the case was perfectly capable in law of handling it impartially and the possibility of bias is a non-starter for reasons I have given.
7. In these circumstances there is nothing whatever in the proposed grounds of appeal, and it is unnecessary for me to consider the further problem which Mr Toofanny has of needing permission to appeal out of time. His application for permission to appeal is dismissed. I express the hope that if, as I rather fear, the date of his Employment Tribunal hearing has now been lost, a fresh date will be set in the near future and this matter disposed of.
ORDER: Application refused