Employment Tribunals were set up in the 1970s to provide a speedy, informal and inexpensive forum for the resolution of employment disputes, which was as accessible for employees as for employers.
Since 1 October 2005, claimants amd respondents have been required to use claim forms which can be downloaded from the Employment Tribunal Service website and which require specific information to be provided.
Tribunals are less formal than other courts. Parties can be represented by solicitors, barristers, trade union representatives or non-legally-qualified consultants. No wigs or gowns are worn. Patries and witnesses remain seated for most of the hearing. The tribunal can decide the order in which it wishes to hear from parties and witnesses, and can take hearsay evidence into account. In general, claims will be heard fairly soon after being issued, although in many tribunals this will be a matter of months rather than weeks.
In order to commence a claim, a claimant must present their claim form (called the ET1) to the tribunal within the time limit applicable to their claim. The tribunal will check that the correct form has been completed and received within that time before serving it on the respondent. The respondent must then present its form (called the ET3) within the 28-day time limit, as advised by the tribunal.
Once the claim and response have been received and accepted by the tribunal, the Employment Tribunal Rules give employment judges and tribunals considerable power and freedom to manage the progression of cases to full hearings through the use of pre-trial orders and directions, whether on the application of either party or on their own initiative. These enable the tribunal to:
- Identify the issues between the parties at an early stage.
- Give any necessary orders (for example, for the provision of further particulars, disclosure, the exchange of witness statements and/or to secure witness attendance).
- Impose a timetable by which the parties are requires to prepare for a full hearing.
Some employment judges will, on review of the tribunal's file after the response had been received, issue orders setting out a timetable of steps for both parties to take. Others will direct the parties to attend a case management discussion that will be held by an employment judge sitting alone. In addition to the action taken by the employment judge, the parties may apply for general or specific orders to be issued, varied or revoked at any stage of proceedings.
The tribunal will usually consist of an employment judge (the tribunal chairman) and two lay members, one from an employee background and one from an employer background. However, in some cases the tribunal judge can sit alone.
At the end of a full tribunal hearing, the tribunal will try to come to a unanimous decision on all the issues before it and gives its decision in the form of a judgement. A judgement may be given orally at the end of a hearing or it may be reserved and a written judgement issued subsequently. A party can only appeal on the ground that they are unhappy with the outcome. The Employment Appeal Tribunal will not interfere with the tribunal's findings of fact unless they are "perverse", in other words the tribunal reached a conclusion that no tribunal could properly have reached on the facts before it (which amounts to an error of law).