Joanne Owers & Paul McFarlane on the spectre of a single employment court
- Why is a single employment court being discussed?
- ELA’s proposals—three-tier system.
- Technology, access to justice and lessons from other jurisdictions.
Statutory employment protection claims have been heard in the Employment Tribunal (formerly the Industrial Tribunal) since the 1970s. A protocol was agreed in the mid 2000s (2005/2006) under which the Employment Tribunal’s Service “retains a separate identity within the overall Tribunal Service, forming a distinct pillar within the organisation”. Much has changed since the 1970s in terms of the depth and breadth of statutory employment protection laws but at least until the advent of Employment Tribunal fees in 2013 and the widely welcomed new Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure of the same year, very little had changed in the way in which Employment Tribunals operated or the cases they heard.
In recent times however momentum appears to be gathering both from the legislature and judiciary to reform Employment Tribunals and move them from their “separate pillar” into the civil courts, in all likelihood as a single employment court.
Discussions
