Employment Tribunal Judgments
Employment Tribunal Judgments
At the end of the final hearing, the tribunal will try to come to a unanimous decision and will give its decision in the form of a judgment. The judgment might only deal with the question of liability with remedy to be decided at a later hearing or it may deal with both liability and remedy.
A judgment:
may be given orally at the end of a hearing, then subsequently confirmed in writing and sent to the parties; or
may be reserved and a written judgment subsequently issued.
The judgment must include reasons, which can be given orally at the time the judgment is issued or reserved to be given in writing at a later date. If reasons for a judgment are given orally, written reasons will only be provided if they are requested by one of the parties:
at the hearing; or
in writing, within 14 days of the date on which the judgment was sent to the parties. This time limit may be extended by an employment judge if they consider it just and equitable to do so.
A party considering an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) will need a copy of the tribunal's written reasons; not only will they need to be considered to assess the merits of any appeal, but a copy of the written reasons must be attached to the Notice of Appeal when it is submitted to the EAT.
Appealing a tribunal judgment
A party can only appeal a tribunal decision to the EAT on a point of law. They cannot appeal on the ground that they are unhappy with the outcome. The EAT 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).
A Notice of Appeal and its attachments must be lodged within 42 days of the date on which the written reasons for the judgment were sent to the parties.