Appeal No.	 EAT/30/99

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 24 March 1999

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE HOLLAND
MR L D COWAN
MR E HAMMOND OBE

MR L THOMAS	APPELLANT

MERTON RACIAL EQUALITY COUNCIL	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	MR L THOMAS
the Appellant in person	

	THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE HOLLAND	This matter started with an IT1 dated 14 May 1998.  By it, Mr Thomas made a complaint against the Respondent, raising matters such as “breach of contract of employment, failure to meet statutory obligations under section 166 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, unfair treatment, dismissal and others”.  Appended to that IT1 were details of his complaint.  Those details set out a brief history of the matter but did not condescend to a precise indication as to what heads of complaint were being raised by reference to which statutory provisions.

	Understandably the matter was listed before an Employment Tribunal sitting at London (South) with a view to the Chairman giving directions.  Prior to that hearing, the Applicant had sensibly taken advice from solicitors.  In their turn, the solicitors had been in correspondence with the Commission for Racial Equality.  One of the problems emerging from that correspondence was the shortage of funds in the hands of the Respondents and the potential for those funds being supplemented in order to meet any claim by the Commission itself.

	We turn then to what happened before the Tribunal, and it appears to be as follows. The solicitor by way of a letter had defined for the Applicant one of the issues he was raising.  They had not defined any of the remaining issues but had left that matter to be dealt with as between him on an unrepresented basis and the Tribunal itself.  In the result, the Order made by the Chairman of the Tribunal dated 6 November 1998 served to identify an ongoing complaint of unfair treatment but it dismissed “upon withdrawal by the Applicant all other complaints”.  The problem that arises is that the Applicant does not in truth wish to withdraw the other complaints.  Yet further, it may be that it is the advantage of nobody that he withdraws all of them because  without ongoing complaints, there may be this background difficulty of securing the necessary funds to meet his proper requirements with respect to redundancy.  

	We are forced presently to put the matter in these somewhat vague terms because the papers in their present state do not give us great assistance.  We are concerned about this situation.  We are concerned further that in the event the Chairman felt himself unable to review the decision, notwithstanding submissions made to him that the unrepresented Applicant had made some error in seeming to concede a dismissal of his other complaints.  The essential problem as it seems to us, may well have been the failure of the solicitors to spell out in writing prior to that hearing, precisely what it was he was complaining about and precisely what Order he was to seek from the Chairman.

	We turn then to the way in which we have to deal with the matter today.  We do perceive an issue here that merits an inter-partes hearing.  The issue goes to the state of  this matter in terms of ongoing complaints and as to whether it is appropriate to seek to revise the Order made by the Chairman.  Thus it is we direct a hearing, but we direct that it be given expedition and that the time allotted to it be no more than one hour.  In that way, this matter should come back before this Tribunal at an early date for an early resolution of these procedural issues.  

	We would hope that Mr Thomas would be represented at that hearing.  If he is not represented, then we would hope further that the solicitors, (who seemingly are acting pursuant to a legal aid certificate) should at least draft out for him all the complaints that he is making, referring such to the appropriate statutory provisions.  They would also assist this Tribunal if they would indicate the relationship between those complaints and any ongoing negotiations that they may have with the CRE.  It has occurred to this Tribunal that it may be in everybody’s interests to restore one or more of the abandoned complaints so as to enable this matter to be looked at benevolently by those with funds, that apparently being the CRE.  Thus in the rather unusual circumstances, we do give leave, but subject to the terms that we have already indicated.