United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	Mr M Erhayiem (in Person)


 


JUDGE PETER CLARK: By an Originating Application presented by the Appellant, Mohamed Erhayiem, to the Manchester Employment Tribunal on 3 December 1997 he complained of racial discrimination against his employer, the Respondent Trevena Blake & Associates, a firm of consulting Civil and Structural Engineers. He is of Iraqi national origin.

The claim was resisted, but the parties entered into negotiations with a view to compromising the claim with the assistance of ACAS.

A Chairman sitting alone on 16 April 1998 found that a binding settlement was reached between the parties as provided for in section 203(2)(e) Employment Rights Act 1996. That provision allows for a complainant to contract out of his rights under the Act where an agreement compromising Employment Tribunal proceedings has been reached and where a conciliation officer has taken action under section 18 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, that is to say, he or she has promoted a settlement of the complaint.

The Chairman accepted evidence given to him by the ACAS officer involved in this case, Mrs Gillian McCarthy, that she contacted both the Respondent's solicitors and having failed to make contact with the Appellant, with his representative, Mr Nicholas Vitti of the Manchester Council for Community Relations. As a result, the final position was that the Respondent's solicitors made an offer which Mr Vitti, having taken the Appellant's instructions, accepted on his behalf. Before the terms of the settlement, reduced into writing on an ACAS form COT3, were signed by the Appellant, he apparently changed his mind and refused to sign that document. That version of events was not materially challenged by the Appellant, who chose not to give evidence before the Employment Tribunal.

Directing himself in accordance with the judgment of Mr Justice Browne Wilkinson, the then President of Employment Appeal Tribunal in Gilbert v Kenbridge Fibres Limited [1984] LRLR 52, the Chairman held that the absence of the Appellant's signature on a document containing the agreement did not prevent there being such a compromise agreement complying with section 203. The Appellant was precluded from pursuing his complaint.

In this appeal Mr Erhayiem has chosen to present his own case, notwithstanding the availability of free legal advice from Counsel under the ELAAS pro bono scheme. We explained that our jurisdiction is limited to correcting errors of law. He was unable to formulate any error of law on the part of the Tribunal Chairman, but urged us to give him the opportunity to have his original claim heard on its merits. He told us that he made an irrational decision in agreeing to the terms of settlement offered by the Respondent shortly before the original date fixed for the hearing of his complaint on 19 February 1998. He now wishes to withdraw from that agreement. We fear that it is too late. In our judgment the Chairman reached the only permissible conclusion in law on the facts before him. Accordingly this appeal must be dismissed.