United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

Mr C Sikpi (Appellant in Person)
For the Respondents	MS R WILLMOT (of Counsel) Messrs Hill Taylor Dickinson Solicitors Irongate House Duke's Place London EC3A 7LP


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): One of the purposes of this directions hearing was to determine how the case should proceed in relation to a point which was very properly raised by the Respondents to the appeal, to the effect that the Notice of Appeal in this case had not been presented to the Employment Appeal Tribunal within time. Normally, a time issue of this sort would be dealt with by the Registrar here. Under the Rules, she is required deal with those issues and from her decision, an appeal lies to the President.

Very sensibly again, the parties are in agreement. It would be unnecessary to go through the stages of the Registrar looking at it and then the potentiality of my looking at it again, and I have been invited to make a ruling on the time limit point myself.

The facts are that the decision under appeal was sent to the parties on 8 July 1998. The decision was in fact not sent directly to the Appellant, Mr Sikpi but to former lawyers of his. After a period of time, he became concerned as to why he had not received the decision, and asked his lawyers what had happened, they indicated they had a copy of the decision and would send it to him. Subsequently, he rang them up again, not having heard anything further, they said that they would send him a decision but again did nothing. He then got in touch with the central Registry of the Industrial Tribunals and they sent to him a copy of the decision.

Mr Sikpi tells me and I accept that when he received a copy of the decision, he did not receive at the same time the normal leaflet that accompanies decisions when they are transmitted to the parties in the usual way. It may well be that the leaflet was contained in the decision which was sent to his legal representative. Mr Sikpi points out that he in fact represented himself at the Industrial Tribunal and had anticipated that the decision would have been sent to him direct, whereas it was not.

Once he had received the decision and promptly thereafter, he filed what I take to be a Notice of Appeal, but sent it to the Industrial Tribunals. He wrote on 9 August, there is a date stamp on it indicating that it was received by the Tribunal on 17 August and it appears that the Industrial Tribunal transmitted it to the Employment Appeal Tribunal so that it was received on 25 August 1998. Since the date from which time starts to run was the 8 July, it follows that the Employment Appeal Tribunal itself received the Notice of Appeal out of time.

The question is whether in those circumstances, it would be appropriate to extend time, having regard to the principles set out in the decision of United Arab Emirates -v- Abdelghafar [1995] which is well known and does not need to be referred to further. I am satisfied that I have been provided with a full and honest explanation for the delay in presenting this Notice of Appeal as I have indicated. It does seem to me that this is one of those very exceptional cases, where I can exercise my discretion to extend time and I would like to record the fact, that the Respondents in this case, having heard Mr Sikpi's explanation and having regard to the need to save expense and unnecessary time in the determination of the appeal have generously indicated that they do not propose to oppose the application for an extension of time.

Given the special circumstances of this case, I am prepared as I say, to exercise my discretion and will extend time so as to enable the Notice of Appeal, which was directed to the Industrial Tribunals to be treated as a Notice of Appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and extend time up until 25 August 1998, so as to enable that document to be treated as a Notice of Appeal filed within time.

It follows therefore, that the next step in these proceeds is for the appeal to be listed for a preliminary hearing at the Employment Appeal Tribunal. As it will have to be determined judicially by a full panel of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, it would be wrong for me to express any opinion in this judgment as to the prospect of success of that appeal. I have not taken into account in exercising my discretion any perception of whether Mr Sikpi's Notice of Appeal contains any arguable point of law or not. Thus by extending time, I am not intending to indicate and it should not be taken as an indication that I believe that there is an arguable point of law to be determined in due course. On that basis I extend time and direct that the matter be listed for a preliminary hearing, in front of a full panel. It should be listed as soon as is practicable.