United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR MARK SAHU (of Counsel) Instructed By: Messrs Shah Solicitors 168 Greenford Road Sudbury Hill Middlesex HA1 3QZ


 


MR JUSTICE CHARLES:

1. We have before us today an appeal by way of preliminary hearing. The parties are a Mr Shah who was the Applicant before the Employment Tribunal, the Respondent is a company called Lex Transport. Our task to-day is therefore to decide whether any points of law are raised in the appeal that are reasonably arguable.
2. The documents that this Tribunal received related to an appeal against a decision of an Employment Tribunal sitting at London (North) on 21 October 1999, Summary Reasons for which were sent to the parties on 24 November 1999.
3. The papers before us also included a letter from the Employment Tribunal refusing to give Extended Reasons and refusing to extend time for a request for Extended Reasons. What we did not have before us was an appeal against that refusal. Accordingly, when the matter was called on I raised with Counsel, representing the Appellant, my surprise that the arguments in writing did not address the question whether or not this Tribunal should, as a matter of the exercise of its discretion, consider whether this appeal should proceed on the basis of Summary Reasons.
4. Counsel had not picked up that point, as I understand it, he was only recently instructed and we adjourned to enable him to take instructions and to consider the position.
5. Over that adjournment, together with Officers of this Tribunal, Counsel has put together a further bundle of correspondence. The first letter therein which is the standard letter which this Tribunal sends out when an Appellant appeals on the basis of Summary Reasons only. It is a letter which refers to the case of the William Hill Organisation v A Gravas (but strangely, it does not refer to the report of the case but to the EAT number thereof) and it draws attention to the fact that an appeal should be against Extended Reasons. The correspondence also shows that an appeal has indeed been made against the refusal to give Extended Reasons and, as we understand it, that appeal was in time by one day.
6. In those circumstances, Counsel who has been unable to discuss matters with his instructing Solicitors during the course of the day, has invited us to adjourn the preliminary hearing.
7. The only appeal that is formally before us is the appeal based on the Summary Reasons. The other appeal could be treated as being before us now we have found the documents and we treat the application as one to adjourn that appeal as well.
8. We think that the appropriate course in these circumstances, when a number of documents have not been included in the bundle before us, is to adjourn both appeals to come on together again by way of preliminary hearing.
9. We had, of course, considered the papers concerning the appeal based on the Summary Reasons and thus the Skeleton Argument and the grounds of appeal relating thereto.
10. The decision as to whether or not this appeal should proceed on the basis of Summary Reasons should it be thought that there is no reasonably arguable point on the other appeal, or that appeal fails, will fall to be made by a Tribunal in the future. We however think that it is fair to record that having regard to the grounds set out in the Skeleton Argument and the Notice of Appeal that our preliminary view on paper was that the Appellant faced an up-hill, if not a vertical, task in seeking to persuade a Tribunal that this was an appropriate case for it to proceed with on the basis of Summary Reasons. I add that we have not heard full argument on that issue and we think that the proper course, having expressed that preliminary view, is to leave the decision on both appeals entirely to the new Tribunal that hears them by way of preliminary hearing.
11. We will direct that the preliminary hearings in respect of both appeals are to come on together on the earliest date practically available to be fixed through the normal channels.