United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR D CRAIG (of Counsel) Instructed By: Ms M Cocks Community Lawyer Employment Rights Unit Cheshire Citizens Advice Bureau 48 Chesterway Northwich Cheshire CW9 5JA


 


MR JUSTICE NELSON: This is a preliminary hearing of an appeal against the

decision of the Tribunal of 29 July 1999 when, by a majority, it dismissed the then Applicant's complaints of unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. In respect of wrongful dismissal it awarded a sum of £1,306.34 which, it is said, has been wrongly calculated and so therefore there is an appeal in respect of that sum insofar as the amount alone is concerned.

1. There are substantial grounds of appeal against this majority decision but two matters in particular form, in the view of this Tribunal, reasons for finding that the matter should go to a full hearing.
2. The first is that, at the outset of the proceedings there was an amendment before the Employment Tribunal to add an additional complaint. That was an allegation that there had been further sex discrimination in the sense that there was a failure to provide the Applicant with a reference. Although that amendment was in fact granted and therefore the application contained that ground, no finding whatever was made in relation to that. That plainly is an error and that matter should go to full hearing.
3. Secondly, there is an allegation that during the course of cross-examination by the representative on behalf of the then Applicant of the principal witness of the Respondents, the Chairman of the Tribunal announced that the cross-examiner had 15 minutes and only 15 minutes left. When that time had been concluded the Chairman informed the cross-examiner that he was allowed one more question. He was told that in fact the cross-examiner had at least 20 questions, all of which were relevant and those had been listed in the material before us and, on the face of it, they are indeed relevant.
4. As a consequence it is said that there was a lack of fairness about the proceedings because of the manner in which the cross-examination was terminated in that way before it had all been dealt with. It appears on the face of the Chairman's comments to the affidavit dealing with this, that the cross-examination was unnecessarily lengthy, tedious and may have contained irrelevant material. But no warning was given in advance to the effect that cross-examination would be time limited. It was only when the announcement was made that 15 minutes alone would remain that the cross-examiner had any idea that this limit was due to be placed.
5. In those circumstances it is, in the view of this Tribunal, arguable that the Chairman and the Tribunal acted in error in thus curtailing, without proper notice, the cross-examination. For our part we would add that the submission that there is no power in a Tribunal to limit cross-examination is a bad submission. There is indeed such power. The question is, how it is properly exercised? It is arguable that it was not properly exercised in this case and there will, in the circumstances, need to be a full hearing on this matter. Because of the second point, namely the cross-examination point, it is appropriate in the circumstances that all the grounds set forth in the grounds of appeal and indeed adverted to in the skeleton argument, go to the full hearing so that the whole matter can be considered at the full hearing and we accordingly so order. We give this half a day, Category C.