United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR K BRYANT (of Counsel) Mr C H Adams Company Solicitor Xerox (UK) Ltd Bridge House Oxford Road Uxbridge Middx UB8 1HS


 


MR JUSTICE BELL: This is an ex-parte preliminary hearing in respect of an appeal by an employer and two of its employees against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at London (North) on 21 October 1997.

The Tribunal had been convened as a preliminary hearing to decide whether the Applicant's allegations of racial discrimination were out of time because his Originating Application was presented more than three months after any act of racial discrimination complained of. The unanimous decision of the Tribunal was that it did have jurisdiction to hear the Applicant's complaints.

It is clear from the reasons for its decision that the Industrial Tribunal took things said by the Respondent's representative at the hearing to amount to a concession that some of the allegations were in time, so that all the Applicant's allegations, whether in time or not, would inevitably have to be heard. So it went on to take it to be conceded that it had jurisdiction to hear and rule on all the Applicant's allegations whenever made.

The basis of the appeal is, firstly, that no such concession was given. The concession made, it is said, was that if any of the Applicant's complaints were in time, so that the case was to proceed to a full merits hearing on those complaints, then the Tribunal might have to hear some evidence relating to events which were "out of time". That begged the issue as to whether any relevant events were in time in fact. Secondly, it is contended that a Respondent to an Originating Application cannot concede jurisdiction in the sense waiving the time provisions of Section 68(1) of the Race Relations Act 1976. An Industrial Tribunal could, of course, accept any admission by a Respondent that events complained of were in time. If a Respondent wished there to be a full hearing on the merits the Industrial Tribunal could take that into account in exercising its discretion whether to hear an out of time complaint under Section 68(6). But, say the Appellants, that was not the position here.

The Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal clearly had no doubt about the extent of the concession made because by a decision entered in the register on 8 January 1998, he refused a review of the jurisdictional decision on the grounds that the concession was made, and we understand that a hearing of the full merits of the applications is fixed to be heard in about three weeks time.

However, in our view on the material before us, it is possible (we say no more) that on a full hearing this Tribunal will find that any concession made was equivocal or, for whatever reason, misinterpreted by the Industrial Tribunal. However that may be, it is arguable in our view that a Respondent cannot, in effect, waive the provisions of Section 68(1) and that the Industrial Tribunal in question was not purporting to exercise its discretion under Section 68(6).

It is with those matters in mind that we allow this appeal to proceed to a full hearing. We direct that any notes of the Chairman relating to the alleged concession be produced in time for the full hearing.

We indicate that it is our view that it would be far better if the hearing on the merits were to await the final disposal of this appeal, because it would be a waste of time and resources if the merits were decided in favour of the Applicant only to find that the whole question of jurisdiction had to be re-heard. The appeal should be listed as Category C with a time estimate of one and a half hours.