United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR C PURNELL (Representative) Tottenham Neighbourhood Law Centre 15 West Green Road London N15 5BX


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing has been to determine whether Mr Andrews has an arguable point of law in an appeal he wishes to run, against a refusal by an Industrial Tribunal Chairman to supply extended reasons. The Notice of Appeal against that refusal is dated 29th May 1997.

The background to this appeal may be shortly stated. There was an Industrial Tribunal hearing at Stratford on 28th and 29th November 1996, at which the tribunal considered Mr Andrews' complaints of race discrimination and unfair dismissal against the Post Office. At the hearing the complaint of race discrimination was withdrawn and therefore dismissed. The tribunal adjudicated on the issue before them, namely unfair dismissal, and came to the conclusion that the dismissal in the circumstances was not unfair.

The tribunal has two forms of decision that it can make. One, in summary reason form; and one by way of extended reasons; and they elected, in this case, to provide their decision in summary form only.

On the face of the decision it says it was sent to the parties and entered in the Register on 20th December 1996. We see no reason to reach any conclusion other than that it was dispatched on that date, although when Mr Andrews made an enquiry of his trades union representative after Christmas, he was told that the decision had not reached them.

He had been represented at the tribunal hearing by Mr Blake, described in the decision as a Trade Union Official, and there is no doubt that Mr Andrews was looking to the union to give him the necessary advice in this case.

At some stage in February 1997, Mr Andrews was able to obtain a copy of the decision from the union, and to provide it to Mr Purnell who has taken over the responsibility of looking after his interests.

The first we knew of this case was when the Notice of Appeal was received by us dated 26th February 1997, that being an appeal against the summary reasoned decision. In due course in response to what we had said to the parties, an application was made to the Chairman for extended reasons, which as I have indicated, was refused.

It will be noted that the Notice of Appeal dated 26th February 1997 was in fact out of time. The time limit for appealing to the Employment Appeal Tribunal is 42 days from the date when the decision is sent to the parties. As has been pointed out on many occasions before, the 42 day time limit is intended to be a generous period because it is recognised that many people who come to this Court do not have the benefit of legal advice, and will wish to reflect upon their position carefully before embarking upon an appeal. Because it is a generous period of time, it is treated as a limitation in time rather than just a target to be aimed at. Accordingly, the Employment Appeal Tribunal takes a strict view as to the requirements for appeals to be lodged within time, and will only extend time in accordance with the principles laid down in the decision of this Court in United Arab Emirates v Abdelghafar [1995] ICR 65.

It follows therefore, that the appeal which Mr Andrews wished to lodged was lodged with us out of time; and he had acting for him a competent adviser, namely the trade union representative. We understand that the failure to appeal within time was not Mr Andrews' personal fault, but was the fault of others. Despite our sympathy for his position, we do not think that this is a proper case where it could be said that the Chairman unreasonably refused to extend time for supplying extended reasons. That limit is a period, I think, of 21 days. The application was made well out of time. It seems to us in all the circumstances, however regrettable, that the appeal does not raise any arguable point of law. We cannot think that the Chairman's exercise of his discretion can be faulted, bearing in mind also the fact that in any event the appeal was out of time. Accordingly, the appeal must be dismissed.