United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR S BROWN (of Counsel) The Treasury Solicitor Queen Anne's Chambers 28 Broadway London SW1H 9JS


 


MR JUSTICE CHARLES: The parties to this appeal which comes before us by way of preliminary hearing are the Ministry of Defence and a Ms KW.

1. Ms KW was the Applicant below and is the Respondent to the appeal and she is so referred to pursuant to a direction made by the Employment Tribunal, pursuant to Rule 13(6) of Schedule 1 of the Employment Tribunals Regulations.
2. The names of the people who the Employment Tribunal have directed to be referred to by initials occur every so often in the Extended Reasons. For that reason we have invited the Appellant to go through their copies of the Extended Reasons and blank out the incorrect references to the names and to ensure that properly anonymised Extended Reasons are placed before this Tribunal in the future. As to that we place no blame on them for putting before us the Extended Reasons that were actually received from the Employment Tribunal.
3. We will also invite the Registrar to write to the Employment Tribunal (who we imagine have their Extended Reasons on disk) to check through and therefore remove with the aid of computer science the inappropriate references to names.
4. As I have said, this appeal comes before us by way of Preliminary Hearing. It is an appeal against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at London (South) who sat over a period of 11 days in June 1999. The decision that is the subject matter of the appeal is that the Respondents unlawfully discriminated against the Applicant on the grounds of her sex and the decisions contained in the Extended Reasons as to extension of time and the finding that there was a continuing act.
5. The Extended Reasons are themselves lengthy and refer to documentation. They set out an unhappy and fairly lengthy history. The Employment Tribunal clearly had a difficult task in collating the considerable amount of material and setting out their findings. We are grateful to the Employment Tribunal for their skill, care and effort.
6. The Notice of Appeal and supporting Skeleton Arguments are also lengthy, but clear, documents which have been prepared with skill and care.
7. In our judgment the Notice of Appeal, as drafted, identifies points of law that are reasonably arguable and, although on our preliminary examination of this case some of the points are in our view more reasonably arguable than others, there are none which we feel it would be right for us to strike out at this stage.
8. We do however think that the appropriate course in this case is for there to be a Directions Hearing at which the Respondent to the appeal will be represented. With that in mind, we have given some brief directions as to that Directions Hearing to the Appellant, in the sense that we have invited them to prepare in a more tabular form the various issues which they say arise on the appeal, to relate to that tabular document the Notes of Evidence they wish to be produced, and if this does not appear from the tabular document, to identify any other Notes of Evidence that they wish and the reason that they wish those Notes of Evidence. For example, if they wish the evidence of a Mr X, as to a particular point, we would wish that point to be identified so that the Respondent to the appeal can say whether or not they agree either that that evidence was given or the fact which it is sought to establish.
9. It will be apparent from what I have just said that we are very anxious to avoid, so far as is practical, this Tribunal delving into the background material and facts. As the parties to this appeal are well aware we are not the fact-finding Tribunal.
10. We will direct that the table of issues etc. be served by the Appellant on the Respondent by 5 January 2000 and we will direct that this matter comes back for directions before me, if available, before mid-February 2000.
11. We are not going to categorise or put any time estimate on this appeal on this occasion. We feel that that is a matter that should be dealt with at the Directions Hearing.