Indeed, the language of Article 6 refers to ‘determination of civil rights and obligations’ when referring to the need for an impartial tribunal, and so on. Some new areas risk blurring the lines: there are now provisions for workers to be legally prevented for working with children, in schools, and with vulnerable adults where concerns over their behaviour has come to light. In this situation the effect of the disciplinary proceedings can be said to have consequences that go further than the relationship between the employer and employee. 

In the case of G, R (on the application of) v X School & Anor [2009] EWHC 504 (Admin), a teacher was accused of sexual impropriety with a 15 year old, involving a breach of trust. He was found by a disciplinary panel to have been in breach of trust, and the case referred to the Secretary of State to see if a direction should be made forbidding him from working in education. He was refused legal representation at the meeting. He challenged the validity of the meeting by judicial review, claiming that under Article 6 the proceedings were effectively criminal proceedings given the gravity of the allegations and the consequences of adverse findings. In the alternative, he claimed that even were the proceedings civil then they were of sufficient seriousness to require a right of legal represenation under article 6. The High Court found:

In my judgment, the gravity of the particular allegations made against the Claimant (sexual impropriety with a person under 18 and abuse of position of trust), taken together with the very serious impact upon the Claimant’s future working life of a potential s.142 direction, are such that he was, and is, entitled to legal representation at hearings before the Disciplinary Committee and the Appeal Committee. On such matters, the Claimant could not fairly be expected to represent himself, and being accompanied by a trade union official or a work colleague (even if available) was not sufficient.

It is important to realise that direct enforcement of human rights legislation, and judicial review proceedings at all for that matter, is only possible against public sector employers. Even so, this ruling opens the way for a considerable widening in what procedural safeguards must be put in place for more serious disciplinary cases.

• Redundancy generally given the downturn, collective consultation and the impact on law firms;
• The British jobs issue at the oil refinery;
• The imminent repeal in April of the dispute resolution procedures, the replacement provisions & the resulting new Acas codes of practice.

 Listen to the podcast here.

Toulson LJ states:

It is a maxim that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but it is profoundly unsatisfactory if the law itself is not practically accessible. To a worryingly large extent, statutory law is not practically accessible today, even to the courts whose constitutional duty it is to interpret and enforce it. There are four principal reasons.

1. First, the majority of legislation is secondary legislation.
2. Secondly, the volume of legislation has increased very greatly over the last 40 years. The Law Commission’s Report on Post-Legislative Scrutiny, (2006) Law Com 302, BAILII: [2006] EWLC 302, gave some figures in Appendix C. In 2005 there were 2868 pages of new Public General Acts and approximately 13,000 pages of new Statutory Instruments, making a total well in excess of 15,000 pages (which is equivalent to over 300 pages a week) excluding European Directives and European Regulations, which were responsible for over 5,000 additional pages of legislation.
3. Thirdly, on many subjects the legislation cannot be found in a single place, but in a patchwork of primary and secondary legislation.
4. Fourthly, there is no comprehensive statute law database with hyperlinks which would enable an intelligent person, by using a search engine, to find out all the legislation on a particular topic.

That case concerned confiscation orders, but let’s apply the principle to employment law. Remember, if you’re an employee presenting a case in the employment tribunal you do not have recourse to any legal aid. The principle is that it is a forum in which you can represent yourself. But can you look up the law that applies to your case? The only port of call for Joe Public is the government’s own information sites, OPSI and the Statute Law Database. So our imaginary Claimant looks up the Employment Rights Act 1996, in which most of our employment laws are found. But what does he find?

So we have a copy of the Act, but without the last five years’ worth of updates. Indeed, the SLD version even goes straight from s98 to s99 – but as we all know this particular Act now sports a shameful ss98ZA – 98ZH, s98A and s98B. Hilariously, the dispute resolution regulations will have been introduced, failed, and been repealed without the SLD text being troubled at any point.

So the brief answer is that the unrepresented Claimant can’t do any meaningful legal research using free resources. Given the complexity of the law, the availability of costs orders where a claim is misconceived, and the unavailability of legal aid, I wonder if there are Article 6 implications. Refusal of legal aid where it is crucial to the presentation of a party’s case can constitute interference with Article 6 rights. One even has to wonder whether ignorance of the law being no excuse is compatible with our legislation being impossible to decipher. The now oft-quoted preface to Archbold 2009 states in relation to criminal law:

It has been a recurring theme of the preface to this work that there is far too much criminal legislation. The willingness of the Labour Government to continue its practice of legislating by trial and error has shown no signs of abating even in its eleventh year in office… The state of the criminal statute book is a disgrace. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is the usual hotchpotch of measures, with no theme, with much of the detail tucked away from close scrutiny in the schedules, and consisting in large part of textual amendment to earlier legislation. Much of the amendment is by way of undoing this Government’s earlier legislation.

This issue is a timebomb. Concerned practictioners and campaigners could do worse than visit Nick Holmes’ page for the Free Legal Web project.

This seems sensible – it means the code of practice rewards compliance and punishes non-compliance, but isn’t so absolute in its effect such as to result in injustice.

I’m pretty stunned by the simplicity of the document, which can be found here. Those used to Acas guidance will have been checking the amount of paper in the printer, but no need here. The full document, including the consultation what nots, is a mere 14 pages. The steps that should be followed are fairly uncontroversial, but have a look for yourself. One paragraph that did catch my eye was this:

23. Some acts, termed gross misconduct, are so serious that they may call for summary dismissal for a first offence.

What this, with its surrounding paragraphs, says is that dismissal on the first offence can only be for gross misconduct. Whilst that will be the case 95% of the time, I’m not sure that as a statement it’s correct in law.

The tribunal is supposed to be informal, its procedures pragmatic, and its language accessible. So much so, in fact, that in normal circumstances you can’t get legal aid for an ET hearing no matter what your means. Yet look at the developments:

• They’re now chaired by Judges;
• In 2004 the existing 21 Tribunal Rules exploded to 61;
• We have CMDs, PHRs, strike-outs, pre-acceptance procedures;
• More costs orders against unreasonable litigants;
• The utterly ridiculous ET1 forms:

Comment has been made in the past on the wording of the standard form ET1, which the Government insists all litigants must now complete in order to bring a claim before the Employment Tribunal. …those who design these forms may care to undertake basic instruction in employment law. – HHJ Peter Clark,  Ellis v Ministry of Defence UKEAT/0034/07

• …not to mention the impossibility in the first year or two of submitting the blasted things without having to resort to filling them in by hand;
• And let us not forget the convoluted and spectacular failure of the Dispute Resolution regulations, taking grievances – which had on occasion solved the problem – and transforming them into a legalistic over-technical minefield, together with obliterating the chance of anyone approaching them constructively.

So would we say the Tribunals are becoming more cuddly? Or less cuddly? A cynical view is that this sort of system leads to less hearings at the Tribunal, and thus less money spent, as one side or the other wins or loses on a technicality long before the Tribunal ever gets a chance to fully assess the merits of the case – or simply can’t face the attrition of yet another meeting. An even more cynical view is that the slow walk to enforced Acas-controlled or accredited mediation has even more risk attached of bumping up the legal bills.

The new provisions in a nutshell are:

• The dispute resolution procedures are abolished;
• They’re replaced by a discretion available to tribunals to alter compensation by up to 25% where a relevant Code of Practice hasn’t been followed.

These changes will be implemented sometime in 2009 – although if it were up to me it’d be next year.

Acas have blamed lawyers for the failure of the procedures – but this is nonsense. The procedures did increase the use of lawyers, but this was the fault of their inflexibility. A case I dealt with recently had an employee physically attack another in a canteen. The employer suspended the pair of them, interviewed them and the dozen-odd witnesses, and concluded that one employee (who had a reputation and indeed a criminal record for unprovoked violence) was solely to blame. He held a disciplinary hearing and dismissed for gross misconduct. Applying any standard of common sense, this was a fair dismissal. But the failure to reduce the disciplinary charges to writing, and send them together with a lot of other nonsense to the employee prior to the disciplinary hearing, made the dismissal automatically unfair. From now on, this employer isn’t going to do a damn thing without calling up his lawyers first, as his ability to deal with his employees in a fair and transparent way (the actual policy behind the procedures) has been utterly destroyed.

With these changes, and the continual increase in mediation, Acas’s role and power in employment disputes is getting steadily greater. I have some reservations about Acas:

• The advisors on their telephone helpline are mostly good, but some live in a complete cloud cuckoo land, replete with bosses and workers engineering social nirvana through the use of staff handbooks and consultation meetings – this translates into incorrect advice, motivated by the organisation’s policies;
• Their conciliators – who ring up both sides in an employment dispute to attempt to persuade them to settle – are judged by the number of cases they successfully conciliate, but their refusal to give legal advice on the merits of a party’s case means that often they just badger people. “Ooh, go on, you’re only £200 apart” – that party nevertheless being £1000 down on what the tribunal award will certainly be doesn’t matter. This isn’t everyone at Acas, but it’s a fair description of at least a third of the conciliators I’ve dealt with. This leads to injustice.

I’ve a feeling it’ll be a very different world in employment law in a few years, but will it really be any better than it was pre-2004?