United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	Neither attended nor represented


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY:

1. In this matter I have before me an appeal from a Registrar's order. There was a hearing before the Employment Tribunal on the 3 and 4 March 1999 which led to a decision being sent to the parties on the 22 March 1999. Mr Wheatley's claim against Crewe & Nantwich Borough Council for disability discrimination failed and it was also held that the applicant, Mr Wheatley, was not unfairly dismissed.
2. There was a request for a review on the 26 April 1999, but that does not, of course, affect the proper time for appealing; the time for appealing, which is related to the 22 March 1999, expired on the 3 May 1999. The Notice of Appeal actually bears date (as being the date on which it was presumably completed in handwriting by Mr Wheatley) the 24 June 1999. But it was not received at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, until the 5 July 1999.
3. On the 24 July, Mr Wheatley, having been told that his Notice of Appeal was out of time, claimed not to have received the Tribunal's decision until the 28 April 1999 and in his letter of 13 August Mr Wheatley asked that time for lodging the Notice of Appeal, be extended. He said "I feel it to be very reasonable to request an extension of time to appeal". On the 18 August the Learned Registrar made an order that upon consideration of a letter of the 24 July from Mr Wheatley and on consideration of a further letter and a letter, also, of the 13 August 1999, she refused the application, without giving reason, which is the general practice. On the 27 August Mr Wheatley wrote to the Registrar saying:-

"I would be obliged if you would explain your actions in detail and provide a full explanation of your judgement against me".

4. This was treated as an appeal against the Registrar's order and so the matter comes before me today. There are no attendances on either side. I have reminded myself of the leading case in the area, United Arab Emirates v Abdelghafar [1995] ICR 65, which sets out the principles to be followed in applications of this kind.
5. It is to be remembered that under the rules of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Rule 3(2), what starts time running as the period within which there has to be any institution of an appeal is not the date on which a party receives the extended written reasons for the decision against which he or she wishes to appeal but that time starts running on the date on which that decision is sent to the Appellant. What Rule 3(2) says as to the period within which an appeal is to be instituted is that appeal:-

"to the Employment Appeal Tribunal shall be instituted by serving on the Employment Appeal Tribunal, within 42 days from the date on which extended written reasons for the decision or order of the Industrial Tribunal were sent to the Appellant, a Notice of Appeal".

6. The 42 days therefore, as I mentioned earlier, expired on the 3 May. The Notice of Appeal was not received, as I have indicated, until the 5 July although purportedly dated 24th June. Even if in Mr Wheatley's favour, it was taken that the 24 June or a couple of days after should have been the date on which it was here received, then, even so, it was comprehensively out of time.
7. There is power, of course, to extend time but it requires for its exercise a full and candid explanation of the delay and, of course, the longer the delay, the more compelling needs to be the explanation if there is to be an extension of time. Here, reading as best I can the various letters which Mr Wheatley relies upon, I find nothing that represents an acceptable explanation of the delay in setting about the service of a Notice of Appeal.
8. There is (to use the language of UAE above) no comprehensive or candid or otherwise compelling explanation of why delay was allowed to occur. In the circumstances, and having regard to the relatively strict policy that is exemplified in the UAE case, I must dismiss the appeal.