United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR A GHANTI (Representative) Race Equality Council for Gloucestershire 15 Brunswick Road Gloucester GL1 1HG


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether there is an arguable point of law in an appeal which the Applicant wishes to make against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal Chairman, sitting alone, at Bristol on 10 February 1998.

The Applicant, Mrs Court, is employed by the Gloucestershire Royal National Health Service Trust. She is a qualified midwife. It is her complaint that she has been denied various promotion opportunities by her employer as specified in her IT1. In relation to the last attempt at promotion, her complaint was lodged within three months. Accordingly, the Industrial Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear and determine whether that allegation is justified and it must proceed to hear the case, it being a race discrimination case.

A question arises as to how the Tribunal should deal with the earlier alleged incidents of non-promotion due to race. The Applicant says that there is an underlying policy continuing in existence with the employers and that the last incident was effectively the straw that broke her back. The Respondents, I am sure, hotly contest that that is so and deny that any race element was involved at any stage in any of the promotion opportunities to which reference is made in the IT1.

The Industrial Tribunal Chairman, sitting alone, concluded that the complaints relating to the non-promotions in August 1996, April 1996 and August 1995 were out of time and could not be relied upon to found separate causes of action but that the evidence in relation to them is admissible because it may show whether the complaint, which was within time, is well-founded or not. He purported to exercise the Tribunal's discretion not to extend time for those earlier complaints. Essentially, Mr Ghanti, on behalf of the Appellant, would wish to argue at a full hearing that the approach of the Industrial Tribunal Chairman was wrong; that the Industrial Tribunal when faced with a problem such as this, should get on and hear the substantive complaint together with any relevant supporting evidence in relation to the earlier incidents and at the end of the day, when it has assessed the evidence on both sides and listened to the arguments on both sides, it can then justly adjudicate on all the matters in issue: including the question as to whether there was an underlying policy; whether there was any substance in the earlier complaints; and whether, in all the circumstances, it would be just and equitable if needs be, to extend time for the bringing of those earlier complaints. All those decisions would be better taken by a full Industrial Tribunal at the end of the case, rather than at the beginning.

It seems to us that that is a distinctly arguable point, having regard to decisions of this Employment Appeal Tribunal in the past, to which reference is made in the Skeleton Argument. It is obviously desirable since there is going to have to be a hearing in any event, in this case before the Industrial Tribunal, that the appeal should be heard and determined as soon as possible by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, and therefore I have fixed Friday week at 9.30 a.m. for the hearing of the substantive appeal. That date may have to be moved if the Hospital tell us within the next few minutes or so that they are unable to comply with that listing. The matter is allowed to proceed on that basis.