United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR J MIDDLETON Solicitor MESSRS FREETH CARTWRIGHT HUNT DICKINS Imperial House 108-110 New Walk Leicester LE1 7EA


 


HIS HONOUR JUDGE H WILSON: This preliminary hearing has concerned the proposed appeal by the Appellant against the decision of the Employment Tribunal to dismiss her complaint. There was an interlocutory hearing on 24 September 1998 and the hearing itself was on 8 December 1998. The decision was promulgated on 18 January 1999.

The Appellant is an Asian Social Worker who had alleged racially motivated problems and made a formal complaint. Subsequently, she considered that false information was given against her and that a proper investigation was not made. She felt that she was pressured and that nothing was being done about her complaint, and therefore she resigned from her appointment with the Respondent Council in 1996.

She later applied for another post in the same Centre and with the same Council. Her application was unsuccessful although she had had three years in a post with the same job description and in the same Centre. The Appellant claimed that the failure to select her was due to the earlier problems in which she had exercised the grievance procedure and resulted in what she described in her original application as a "double injustice". The Respondent Council claimed successfully before the Tribunal that there was no cause of action shown by the Applicant and in any case, the better candidate was chosen for the job.

The grounds upon which the appeal is brought are that, when one considers the wording of the interlocutory order and thereafter of the extended reasons by a different Tribunal in the decision itself, there cannot be excluded the possibility of confusion between victimisation and racial discrimination.

So far as the Order is concerned, the first paragraph suggests that the matter is to proceed on both grounds and yet at the end there is a note which is in conflict with the first paragraph of the Order. The same goes for the extended reasons in the decision document. We are satisfied that the matter should go for full argument on the question whether the Appellant's case should be remitted for retrial by a differently constituted Employment Tribunal because of the apparent failure of the first Employment Tribunal to recognise and deal separately with the Appellant's two complaints, namely, victimisation and a free standing complaint of racial discrimination. We think the matter should be Category C with a time estimate of 2 hours. Skeleton arguments should be submitted to the Tribunal and the other side 14 days before the hearing date together with a list of any authorities.