United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT/RESPONDENTS


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): This is an interlocutory appeal, that is, it is an appeal against a refusal of an Industrial Tribunal Chairman to adjourn a case which is due to take place on 14 July 1997. It is a case in which there are allegations of race discrimination involving Royal Mail and three named individuals.

The circumstances in which the application for an adjournment came to be made are that the Applicant in this case, Mr Yearwood, presented his IT1 dated 3 February 1997, naming in paragraph 3, a Jenny Sabastion of the Wellingborough District Racial Equality Council as his representative. That organisation is a charity and is not in receipt of substantial funds. They provide legal assistance in race discrimination cases in their area. They are engaged on behalf of another applicant in a case in the Leicester Industrial Tribunal. That case has gone part-heard and was adjourned and re-listed for hearing on 14 July.

On 6 June, after the part-heard case had been listed for hearing, the organisation received formal notification from the Bedford Industrial Tribunal that Mr Yearwood's case was listed for hearing on 14 July. Promptly they wrote to the Bedford Industrial Tribunal requesting a postponement. That request was refused. They also wrote to the Leicester Industrial Tribunal on 12 June asking that the part-heard case be re-listed. Not surprisingly, the Leicester Tribunal told the organisation that it would be better if they renewed their application to Bedford, because "priority is given to part-heard claims". Accordingly, further applications were made to the Bedford Industrial Tribunal who have refused them subject to any decision, of course, that we might make in this matter.

These questions, that is, whether cases should be adjourned or not in the interests of justice, are very difficult to determine and we have considerable sympathy with the attitude which has been taken by the distinguished Chairman in this case.

There are many good reasons for holding parties to a commitment which has been made. When the date was originally fixed for this case I think it was at a time when the organisation believed that they would be available.

Furthermore, the Respondents to the complaint have an interest in having their case heard and determined, particularly where individuals have been named as Respondents, as has happened in this case. Justice delayed is, as we know, justice denied, and we can understand the learned Chairman taking the attitude which he did. But that said, this seems to us to be a listing crisis of the sort which is capable of causing injustice.

Had the organisation to which I have referred been a professional firm of Solicitors, there could be no doubt but that it would have been the right decision to have refused an adjournment and to require Mr Yearwood to obtain alternative legal services, or possibly the services of a different partner within the same firm. But organisations such as the one in question do, in our experience, provide useful assistance to the community which they serve, and we are mindful of the difficulties which listing problems can genuinely cause to them. They have, in our judgment, acted properly and promptly in this matter.

There is no particular prejudice which the Respondents are able to identify if the appeal were to be allowed, although they do point out that the three individuals do not work in the same place and have been organised to attend on 14 July, but that said, there is no other further particular injustice which they can legitimately point to, if we were to accede to this appeal.

Not without some difficulty, we have arrived at the conclusion that the interests of justice require that this case should be adjourned. If it is not, Mr Yearwood would have to appear on 14 July without representation to ask for an adjournment; we imagine that, in those circumstances, the Tribunal would be likely to accede to his request. If that were to happen, then the inconvenience to the witnesses would be much greater than if we were to accede to the appeal. If, on the other hand, he turned up unrepresented on 14 July, and an application for an adjournment was refused, we can well understand how he might well feel at a disadvantage in proceeding with complaints of unlawful discrimination, which are serious complaints to make and to have tried. It seems to us, in general, that it is important that this type of case in particular should be heard after the parties have had a fair opportunity to prepare for the hearing before the Industrial Tribunal.

Therefore, with difficulty, we have on balance been prepared to accede to this appeal. Although for technical reasons we are forced to say that the refusal of an adjournment was, in our judgment, so unreasonable as to be worthy of our interfering with it, we would like to make it quite clear that we are not unappreciative of the reasons which must have lain behind the attitude which has been taken by the Chairman in this case.

For these reasons we feel obliged to allow this appeal and to order that the case be adjourned from 14 July.