Appeal No.	 EAT/646/00

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 1 November 2000

Before
THE HONOURABLE LORD JOHNSTON
MR J R CROSBY
LORD DAVIES OF COITY CBE

MR G HARVEY	APPELLANT

3A PALACE GREEN	RESPONDENTS

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING – EX PARTE

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON	

	LORD JOHNSTON:		This is an appeal at the instance of the appellant employee against a decision of the Employment Tribunal that he had been unfairly dismissed from his employment with the respondents and he was awarded compensation, albeit for a relatively small sum of money because the basis of the tribunal’s decision was procedural unfairness and they thus quite properly went on to consider against the background of well known case of Polkey v A E Dayton Services Ltd [1987] IRLR 503 HL to make the assessment as to what would have been likely result in the case if there had been a proper investigation and proper procedural handling of the matter.

1.	The unusual situation about this case is that Mr Harvey appeals, notwithstanding the fact that he won, and at the outset of the hearing before us we gave him the opportunity to answer two questions. The first being: what result did he expect or hope to obtain from a full hearing before this tribunal in due course in terms of the practical questions arising in this case; and secondly: upon what basis of law was such result being sought, in the sense that the tribunal had misdirected itself.

2.	Mr Harvey was quite unable to answer either of those questions but proceeded to address us on a number of unrelated matters ranging over such issues as whether or not the agent of the employee could be regarded as the employer for the purposes of conducting a hearing; whether or not the criminal law admitted certain presumptions in or against his favour which had been wrongly applied; and finally, as far as we can make out, the suggestion that the witnesses at the tribunal had perjured themselves.

3.	It is perfectly apparent to us that none of these issues are relevant to any consideration that this tribunal can bring to bear upon the decision of the Employment Tribunal. It is of course open to us to reassess the question of the Polkey assessment or indeed any question of reinstatement, but it has to be said at once that this tribunal is always very slow to do that and will only do so if there has been a manifest abuse by the tribunal below of its discretion. In this respect in neither of those instances has that happened.

4.	What we are therefore left with on the face of the record is a clear and logical argued decision by the tribunal which reveals, as far they were concerned, that they were satisfied that certain conduct by the appellant entitled the employer to dismiss but did they do so in a way which was procedurally unfair. That becomes perfectly clear from effectively the paragraph of their decision where they deal with the way in which disciplinary hearing was carried out, which is in paragraph 6. It is clear to us that the tribunal really determined that what Mr Harvey was subjected to was a ‘kangaroo court’ and in those circumstances he had been unfairly treated.

5.	In these circumstances, we are unable to conceive on what basis this tribunal could produce any remedy that would overturn or even effect the decision the tribunal has reached. In these circumstances this application is dismissed and the matter will go no further.