United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	No appearance or representation by or on behalf of the Appellant


 


JUDGE D M LEVY QC

1. The Appellant, Mr P R James, entered a Notice of Appeal on 5 July 2000, following a hearing before a Tribunal sitting in Bristol. The hearing had taken place on 4 July. The claim was for unfair dismissal; the claim had been lodged as long ago as 4 September 1995. The delay in hearing it was because of the difficulties arising from the well known case of R v Secretary of State ex parte Seymour-Smith & Perez.
2. The Notice of Appeal, as will already be apparent, was lodged before the Employment Tribunal Decision was promulgated on 24 July. There have been delays in the hearing of the ex parte application and the usual procedure which should have been applied to Mr James's appeal. This was because he has asked for several adjournments and because of his financial position, which he said made him unable to come to attend a hearing at this Tribunal.
3. The Tribunal received a communication on 23 November 2001, asking that we be informed that the Appellant had written to the Minister at the DTI, with details of his case, which had been sent by Recorded Delivery on 9 October 2001. He has not yet had a reply; he does not know whether the Minister has contacted the Registrar of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. He wants it known that if the case goes ahead without him, he will appeal to the Court of Human Rights.
4. Between the date when he sent in his Notice of Appeal there has been prolonged correspondence between him and this Tribunal. It goes from pages 35 to 140 of this bundle, ignoring earlier exchanges to do with the appeal which appear between pages 12 and 19. He has sworn an affidavit on 8 August 2000 in which he sets out a problem which he had at the Tribunal because Mr Sara, the Chairman, had refused him permission to read an affidavit into the Tribunal record. He said, in the course of that affidavit;

"The written extended reasons of this hearing now lodged with the Employment Appeal Tribunal must at paragraph 1 therefore be untrue."

Paragraph 1 reads:

"The Tribunal has heard submissions from the applicant and the respondents' Counsel and the decision is based on the agreed facts and on the basis of the applicant's contentions without having heard [our emphasis]evidence on oath."

It is clear that no oral evidence was heard before the Tribunal but that does not mean, as the Appellant seems to think it does, that the contents of his affidavit were not considered.

5. At the end of the day, the short point raised was whether he - not having had the requisite length of employment - was able properly to bring his claim. He was employed by the Respondents between 28 October 1985 and 14 October 1987, when he was summarily dismissed, allegedly for gross misconduct. Thus he had not been employed for two years at the date of dismissal.
6. The Tribunal, rightly, addressed the question, having regard to the decision in the Seymour Smith case. In our judgment, they also considered the human rights position and other points which were raised by the Appellant below.
7. This appeal has no prospect of success, if it goes on to a full Tribunal hearing, with both parties present. In the circumstances we will dismiss it at this stage. We are sure, having read all the correspondence in our bundle, that had the Appellant been able to come to attend this preliminary hearing, he would have sought leave to appeal, and we have considered whether there is a matter to go forward to the Court of Appeal; in the light of our own findings we do not think there is one. In the circumstances, we will also take it that an application for permission to appeal was before us, which we will refuse.