United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR R JAY QC (of Counsel) Instructed by: The Treasury Solicitor Queen Anne's Chambers 28 Broadway London SW1H 9JS
For the Respondent	MR D CRAIG (of Counsel) ELBA Pro Bono Unit


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT)

1. This is an application under section 33 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 ("Restriction of Vexatious Proceedings") where the Applicant is Her Majesty's Attorney General and the Respondent is Mr C P England. Today we have before us, for the Attorney General, Mr Jay, Queen's Counsel, and, on behalf of Mr England, Mr David Craig. We have not needed, today, to go into the merits, although the merits were briefly looked at on the earlier occasion when the matter was before us.
2. The matter was adjourned on the previous occasion because it transpired that Mr England was in a position in which, as proceedings grew imminent, he became increasingly stressed, and indeed, so stressed that it would not have been just to have heard the case without him being represented. On the previous occasion he was not represented and it was for that reason that the matter stood adjourned.
3. Happily, today, Mr David Craig, through the good offices of ELBA and their Pro Bono system, has appeared for Mr England, and we are indebted to Mr Craig for a very thorough and well ordered argument on behalf of Mr England, which has been considered by us. But, as I say, we have not needed to go into the merits, because very recently, on 7 February, Mr England put his name to a document headed "Affidavit" (although it seems that it is not, strictly speaking sworn) in which he said that he was 64 on 4 February 2001 and did not intend to seek employment or take out any more cases in the Tribunals. The reference to seeking employment is material because most, if not all of Mr England's previous applications to the Tribunal have been concerned with his view that he had been discriminated against when seeking employment.
4. The reason why we have not needed to go into the merits is that there is a proposal by Mr Jay, on behalf of the Attorney General, that the matter should be simply adjourned for a year. Mr Jay takes as his model for that application a case in the Queen's Bench Divisional Court before Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Potts, an unreported case, where the Respondent was Lesley Norman Parlett.
5. We have some misgivings in following the Parlett case; there, the proceedings which had been repeated on Mr Parlett's behalf, it would seem, grew out of a past family dispute and to that extent Mr Parlett's actions depended on his own responses, largely it would seem, to past events, and in relation, one would think, to a relatively finite and definable class of people, namely, other members of Mr Parlett's family.
6. Here, by contrast, the proceedings that Mr England has launched have been against a much larger class, namely the persons to whom he has made application for a job, and moreover, since, in the past, he has been proceeding, time after time, to make applications for jobs, if he were to continue making applications, the events complained of in prospective proceedings would be future events, rather than in the Parlett case, as it would seem, past events. Of course we also have to recognise that Mr England may be discriminated against.
7. So that seems to us a possible difference between the Parlett case and the England case, and one has to recognise that simply adjourning the case leaves the public (and in this case that means, in effect, prospective employers to whom Mr England makes application) unprotected, but, against that, both parties here support the idea of the adjournment; we have no doubt that Mr England has been carefully and fully advised of the consequences of the adjournment. The adjournment offers Mr England the escape from the possible making of a Restriction of Proceedings Order, and the possible opprobrium which that might carry with it, and, given that he suffers, or is likely to suffer stress in relation to proceedings, it is a convenient course.
8. Accordingly, we shall adjourn the matter for one year, which is the agreed so proposed plan. At the end of that year the matter is to be restored for hearing at the EAT. The likelihood is (indeed Mr Jay puts it higher than that but we are content to describe it as being a position in which the likelihood is) that if, at the end of that year, Mr England has in the interval not launched proceedings or has launched only proceedings which could be described as just and reasonable, well then, at the end of the year, the likelihood is that the Attorney General will simply accept that the matter should be disposed of with no Order, including no Order as to costs.
9. If, however, in the meantime, Mr England launches proceedings which cannot be described as just and reasonable, well then, the likelihood is that the matter will be restored in the interval, between now and a year hence, or failing that, at the end of the year, and different relief might then be sought.
10. The Minutes of Order which initially were proposed make rather more elaborate provision, but, with the agreement of both parties, we simply adjourn the matter for a year, and give general liberty to both parties to apply.
11. It is, in our view, appropriate that Mr England should be able to come back to the Court within the year, should he have in mind that there are some particular new kinds of proceedings which he truly wishes to issue and which he truly regards as proper to the issue. He could then come back and indicate to the Court why it was that he felt that he ought to be able to issue those proceedings. He will, in fact, be unrestrained, in the sense that there will be nothing to stop him issuing the proceedings, but for all that, he might feel it wise to exercise the general liberty to apply to come back, if he wants to issue proceedings, within the year.
12. But, reverting to what the form of the Order is, it simply stands the matter for a year; it gives a general liberty to both parties to apply, and reserves costs.