United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	NEITHER PRESENT NOR REPRESENTED


 


JUDGE PETER CLARK: This appeal raises yet again the perennial problem of an Appellant lodging a notice of appeal against a substantive Employment Tribunal decision but with summary reasons only attached. Rule 3(1)(c) of the Employment Appeal Tribunal Rules 1993, and indeed paragraph 5 of the Standard Form Notice of Appeal used by the Appellant in this case make it clear that Extended Written Reasons must be served with the Notice.

Having received a defective Notice of Appeal, as in this case, it is standard practice for the Registrar to write to the Appellant pointing out the need for Extended Reasons. The Appellant then applies to the Employment Tribunal Chairman for Extended Reasons. That application is invariably out of time under the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure which by Rule 10(4)(c)(ii) provide that a request for Extended Written Reasons must be made, if not earlier, within 21 days of the promulgation of written summary reasons.

What then happens is that the Employment Tribunal refuses to provide the Extended Reasons on the ground that the request is out of time. The Appellant is advised to appeal against that refusal.

Here the Chairman has, by letter of 15 October 1998,

(a) refused the request for Extended Written Reasons because it was made outside the 21 day period, and

(b) said that the summary reasons are really quite comprehensive and the Respondent might invite the Employment Appeal Tribunal to take the appeal on the basis of those reasons.

We have the following observations on that approach:

(1) The Chairman does not appear to have considered exercising his discretion under Rule 15 of the Employment Tribunal Rules to extend time.

(2) He has not said that the summary reasons can stand as Extended Reasons, as sometimes happens.

(3) We can, under Rule 39(2) of the EAT Rules, allow a case to proceed on the basis of summary reasons only.

The Respondent below, Appellant before us, is not present to make oral submissions today. Having considered the original Notice of Appeal dated 23 September 1998 and the summary reasons we are satisfied that the appeal can proceed substantively on the basis of those summary reasons. Accordingly, we shall make no Order on the present appeal against the refusal to provide Extended Written Reasons, save to direct that the substantive appeal proceed to a preliminary hearing on the basis of the summary reasons dated 2 September 1998. In the event that either party objects to the substantive appeal proceeding on the basis of summary reasons only he should do so in writing to the Registrar within 21 days of promulgation of this Order, whereupon the present appeal will be listed for a full inter partes hearing. At that hearing our direction as to the substantive appeal may be altered or revoked.