United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

BAILII case number: [1993] UKEAT 122_93_0912

Appeal No. EAT/122/93

EMPOLYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

At the Tribunal

On 9th December 1993

Before

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (P)

MR J H GALBRAITH CB

MR D O GLADWIN CBE JP

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MR O BIGGS          APPELLANT

UNISYS EUROPE - AFRICA LIMITED          RESPONDENTS

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Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised


 


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APPEARANCES

For the Appellant MR O BIGGS

(In Person)


 


MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (PRESIDENT): This is an appeal by Mr Biggs against the decision of the Industrial Tribunal held at London (North) on five days in September 1992.

Mr Biggs' complaint against his former employers, Unisys Europe-Africa Limited, for whom he worked as a computer programmer, was that he had been racially discriminated against. The Industrial Tribunal rejected the complaint.

The decision sets out the background to the complaints in detail and in its final paragraphs states the conclusions of the Tribunal about the three principal complaints that Mr Biggs had made.

The first complaint was that he had not been given adequate training or suitable training. The Tribunal made some remarks critical of the Respondents that there had been some confusion over courses offered to him, taken away from him and then re-offered to him. The Tribunal found as a fact that this was a result of administrative error and that, in any event, his needs were ultimately satisfied. The Tribunal therefore declined to infer that there had been racial discrimination.

The second complaint was that Mr Biggs should have been promoted earlier than he was in fact promoted. The Tribunal referred to the relevant decisions which lay down guidance on questions of racial discrimination and concluded that it was unable to infer racial discrimination from the fact that Mr Biggs had not been promoted to Grade 12 when he states he should have been promoted.

The Tribunal accepted the evidence given on behalf of the Respondents that there were other individuals who were "high flyers" and of a higher calibre than Mr Biggs. The Tribunal went out of its way to state that this did not mean that Mr Biggs was not of high calibre; it simply meant that the other two candidates were more deserving of promotion.

The Tribunal stated in another part of its decision that Mr Biggs was an extremely able person.

The third area of complaint gave rise to criticisms of the Respondents. The complaint was that Mr Biggs had been victimised by being given a final written warning after he had brought a grievance under the procedure. The Tribunal commented that it was regrettable that the Respondents handled the matter in the manner that they did, but went on to find that, on the facts, there had been no victimisation.

Mr Biggs is dissatisfied with that decision. He thinks, and thinks strongly, that his complaint of racial discrimination should have been upheld. He issued an appeal and submitted to this Tribunal very detailed comments, in writing, on each paragraph of the Tribunal's decision. He sets out in his application his grounds of appeal. He complains that he has been libelled by a Mr Kramer who works for the Respondents. He complains that the Respondents acted in breach of its own disciplinary and grievance procedures and that his job specification was arbitrarily changed following the 1st May 1992 without prior consultation or discussion. Finally, he complains that the Respondents acted in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976 by treating him less favourably than fellow employees by refusing or failing to permit him to attend relevant courses and in giving him a written warning without justification.

The last paragraph, on the main point which Mr Biggs has dealt with in his oral submissions to us, is a repetition of the principal complaints that he made to the Industrial Tribunal. We have reminded Mr Biggs during this hearing that the powers of this Tribunal are extremely limited. They are limited by Act of Parliament. This is not the Industrial Tribunal which hears evidence and decides whether or not a complaint is well founded. This is an Appeal Tribunal, which only has a limited power to hear complaints that an Industrial Tribunal has made errors of law in the way in which it has dealt with the complaints. Mr Biggs referred in his arguments, and in the written submissions, to a number of decided cases. He repeated in a summary form the points which he appears to have made at greater length before the Industrial Tribunal. We have been unable to see in any of his complaints an error of law on the part of the Tribunal in the way in which it dealt with his complaints under the Race Relations Act 1976.

We understand the dissatisfaction that Mr Biggs feels about the result of the Industrial Tribunal. But we are unable, in the exercise of our limited powers, to do anything about it. The Tribunal appears to have gone into the evidence in great detail over a number of days and does not appear to have made any legal error in its conclusions.

For those reasons we shall dismiss the appeal.