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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> England v. Hampshire County Council [1999] UKEAT 365_99_1907 (19 July 1999) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1999/365_99_1907.html Cite as: [1999] UKEAT 365_99_1907

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE CHARLES: This appeal comes before us by way of preliminary hearing, we therefore have to consider whether the appeal raises points of law that are reasonably arguable. We say at once that, in our judgment, it does.

1. The proceedings have an unhappy history in that there has already been one appeal to this Tribunal when the matter was remitted to the Employment Tribunal to hear the complaint again.
2. The judgment of this Tribunal was delivered by the President on 13 July 1998 and in it the President said, at pages 9 and 10 of the judgment:

"There needs to be a rehearing before a new panel who should approach this matter on the basis that they are looking at it for the very first time. Accordingly, the appeal is allowed. The matter is remitted back for a rehearing by a freshly constituted Tribunal with a full panel.

3. The present appeal is against that rehearing at which the Respondent Council (and I should have said that the parties to this appeal are Rear Admiral England and the Hampshire County Council) in effect made a submission of no case to answer, after the Applicant had finished giving his evidence.
4. Our preliminary view on an ex parte basis is that it is surprising, given the history of this case, that the Respondent Council made such a submission and that it was accepted by the Employment Tribunal. Again, on a preliminary basis that surprise is compounded by the reasons given by the Chairman for refusing a review, which seem to be based on what he took to be an admission in the evidence of the Applicant that he had not been designated for the purposes of section 100 of the Employment Rights Act. It seems to us, again on an ex parte and preliminary basis, that that is not simply an issue of fact but is one of fact and law.
5. Additionally, it is apparent that the Applicant, through the totality of his evidence was not accepting that he did not satisfy the section and that he had a number of arguments as to why he did so, as a matter of fact and law. Further, as we understand it, those arguments went outside the terms of his own contract of employment in which he might have been designated for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act.
6. Before us, as before the Employment Tribunal, the Applicant has represented himself and has prepared his own Notice of Appeal. That is a lengthy document and it seems to us on a preliminary basis that some of the points raised are better than others.
7. Although a lawyer might have prepared and drafted the grounds of appeal differently, we consider that the Notice of Appeal is a clear document and although, as we have said on an ex parte and preliminary basis, we think that some points are better than others and therefore more reasonably arguable than others, we are of the view that we should simply direct that this appeal be set down for a full hearing on all the grounds raised in that Notice of Appeal.
8. So far as directions are concerned we give this case category B and a time estimate of a day. We shall direct that the Chairman's notes of the hearing be provided and we shall make a direction as to the preparation of a bundle which will be that a bundle of documents to be used on the appeal shall be agreed 28 days before that hearing, pursuant to the following timetable.
9. The Appellant is to provide an index to the Respondent Council 56 days before the hearing date. The Respondent Council are to indicate 42 days before that date which documents they agree and what, if any, further documents they want to put in the bundle, and 35 days before the hearing date the Appellant is to indicate what documents he agrees should go in the bundle by reference to the Respondent Council's response. Any additional documents, which either party wants to rely on which are not in the agreed bundle, are to be included in separate paginated bundles produced by each side.
10. We direct that skeleton arguments are to be exchanged 14 days before the hearing and lodged with the agreed bundle, the supplementary bundles and any authorities that the parties wish to rely on.
11. So far as the supplementary bundles are concerned, if there is an argument by either side that this Tribunal should not look at documents within a supplementary bundle, then those documents should be excluded from the supplementary bundle(s) that are lodged and the argument(s) as to the production to this Tribunal of those documents will be dealt with by this Tribunal when it hears the full appeal. Copies of the documents so excluded from the supplementary bundle(s) should be available at the full hearing.