The Employment Tribunal

On Thursday March 20, 2008 on the kind invitation of John Mullen a member of my LLM Class I had the opportunity of attending the Central London Emploment Tribunal and doing the equivalent of a "court attendance" ( for the NMLS grads!) observing the procedures and a case actually being adjudicated. The matter was Jean-Emmanuel Detter v The Ritz Hotel (London) a claim for Unfair Dismissal under the 1996 UK Employment Rights Act. The claimant worked for the hotel and after making some allegations of bullying against a supervisor he eventually went off sick with stress. During the course of the proceedings the HR department I think blundered by assuming that he resigned although all he stated was that he was 'going to resign' in a meeting. A further blunder by them was that after making the assumption, they continued paying him for a further 7 months! Long and short of the case was that the hotel proceeded to stop the payments thereafter. My view was that he never resigned and was thus dismissed at the point when the hotel stopped paying him. The manner in which this was done amounted to unfair dismissal. The Tribunal also agreed, but because Detter was under a duty to mitigate his loss, the amount payable in compensation was minimal.

The reception area at the tribunal

John and I awaiting the Tribunal's Decision

The experience was exhilarating! All the things that I am now learning took on practical significance. Some of the things that stood out were that (a) the Claimant represented himself and did a good job (b) the setup of the Tribunal though quite informal by conventional courtroom standards still used many aspects of legal reasoning and the Chairman was outstanding in marshalling the proceedings (c) the background of the case was well documented by both the respondent and claimant thus evidence was filed and in the possession of the Tribunal which assisted in the timely adjudication of the case.

This has strengthened my resolve to explore in my dissertation the employment dispute resolution mechanism for the enforcement of individual employment rights in Jamaica. ONWARD I GO!