This chapter examines the jurisdiction and structure of tribunals. It then considers two very different tribunals through the use of case studies, namely the Employment Tribunals and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Tribunals have existed for many years but have traditionally operated as an oversight system for administrative issues. In recent years, the number of tribunals has increased and their work has begun to involve more complicated legal questions. Tribunals are now, in essence, a parallel system of dispute resolution and their complexity is recognized by the fact that their presiding officers now bear the title of ‘judge’. This chapter examines this parallel judicial system and identifies similarities between and differences from court justice.
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This chapter examines the jurisdiction and structure of tribunals. It then considers two very different tribunals through the use of case studies, namely the Employment Tribunals and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Tribunals have existed for many years but have traditionally operated as an oversight system for administrative issues. In recent years, the number of tribunals has increased and their work has begun to involve more complicated legal questions. Tribunals are now, in essence, a parallel system of dispute resolution and their complexity is recognized by the fact that their presiding officers now bear the title of ‘judge’. This chapter examines this parallel judicial system and identifies similarities between and differences from court justice.
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Tribunals have operated for over 200 years. They are essentially specialised courts dealing in specific areas of legal dispute such as employment, housing, immigration, mental health, social benefits, and tax. This chapter explains the development of tribunals from the late eighteenth century to the present day. It examines the major reforms that have taken place in the twenty-first century, resulting in most tribunals being re-organised into ‘chambers’ within the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal. The chapter explains the composition of tribunals and the rules on appointment of tribunal members, including lay members. It explains the ways in which tribunal decisions may be challenged, either by way of an appeal to another tribunal or to the mainstream courts, or through judicial review. The chapter examines the advantages of tribunals over mainstream courts but also considers whether, through a process known as ‘legalism’, tribunals are becoming too much like the mainstream courts.
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Tribunals have operated for over 200 years. They are specialised courts dealing in specific areas of legal dispute such as employment, housing, immigration, mental health, social benefits, and tax. This chapter explains the development of tribunals. It examines the major reforms that have taken place in the twenty-first century, resulting in most tribunals being re-organised into ‘chambers’ within the First-Tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal. The chapter explains the composition of tribunals and the rules on appointment of tribunal members. It explains the ways in which tribunal decisions may be challenged, either by an appeal to another tribunal or to the courts, or through judicial review. The chapter examines the advantages of tribunals over courts and considers whether tribunals are becoming too much like the mainstream courts.
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Panels, committees, tribunals, referees, adjudicators, commissioners, and other public authorities decide many thousands of disputes each year over (for example) entitlement to benefits, or tax liability, or political asylum, or the detention of a patient in a secure hospital. The massive array of agencies reflects the great variety of benefits and burdens that twenty-first-century government assigns to people. The array had no overall organization until 2007, when Parliament transformed it into a complex system. This chapter explains the benefits of integrating these decision-making agencies in the new system. The law needs to tailor their structure, processes, and decision-making techniques to the variety of purposes they serve. And the law needs to achieve proportionate process by reconciling competing interests in legalism and informality in tribunal processes.
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This chapter identifies courts and tribunals as the place where the laws discussed in the previous chapters are interpreted and utilized in the legal system. The jurisdiction of the courts and the personnel within them are described and a comparison is drawn between these forums for the administration of justice. It is important for those in business to be aware of the work of at least one tribunal—the Employment Tribunal, as many employment-related disputes ultimately end up here. Also, the courts in the English legal system, and the increasing use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, are relevant to businesses as they are used either to settle disputes or to avoid them altogether. Because the term ‘court’ is difficult to define in any practical sense, the chapter uses a description of what a court does.
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This chapter considers the role and constitutional status of tribunals that determine appeals against initial decisions made by government agencies. It also examines the place of tribunals within the UK’s public law system and the reorganisation of the tribunals into a new, integrated, and unified tribunals system brought about by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. An overview of the tribunals system, tribunal procedures, and judicial oversight of tribunal decision-making is also provided.
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Sir William Wade and Christopher Forsyth
Tribunals have attracted the attention of the legislature on several occasions, most recently with the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, which implements far reaching and fundamental reforms seeking to impose system and order on the maze of specialised tribunals. This chapter discusses the 2007 reforms, the procedure of tribunals, and appeals on questions of law and discretion.
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This chapter looks at the employment tribunal procedure and at the steps that are generally taken before a full hearing takes place, including settlements and early conciliation. Also considered are time limits. Employment tribunals are less formal than other courts. The tribunal panel is usually made up of a judge and two lay members, but a judge can sit alone in certain circumstances. A case has to be brought on a standard ET1 form, and a response on a standard ET3 form. Full details have to be given, and permission is rarely given to amend. Preliminary hearings can be held to sort out issues such as disclosure. There is also an emphasis on settlement if possible.
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Sir William Wade, Christopher Forsyth, and Julian Ghosh
Tribunals have attracted the attention of the legislature on several occasions, most recently with the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, which implements far reaching and fundamental reforms seeking to impose system and order on the maze of specialised tribunals. This chapter discusses the 2007 reforms, the procedure of tribunals and appeals on questions of law and discretion.
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An employee seeking the enforcement of a statutory right, or to obtain a remedy for a breach of that right, must present his claim to an employment tribunal. This chapter discusses the rules for making a claim to an employment tribunal and the employment tribunal procedure. It looks at time limits and the effective date of termination, and considers the mechanics of submitting and defending a claim; the various stages of proceedings such as preliminary hearings and case management as well as the final hearing; remedies including compensation, basic award and compensatory award; vexatious litigants; costs and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and beyond.
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Mark Elliott and Jason Varuhas
This chapter deals with statutory tribunals, the growth of which mirrors the dramatic expansion of the state itself. It first explains what tribunals are and whether they are a good thing before discussing two important turning points in the development of tribunals: the Franks Report, published in 1957, and the Leggatt Review, published in 2001. It then considers the independence of tribunals, focusing on their judicial leadership as well as tribunal appointments. It also examines some of the key issues and themes which arise from tribunal procedure, paying attention to formality, representation, and the style of tribunal proceedings. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the structure of the tribunals system and its relationship with the courts, with particular emphasis on the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) and the Upper Tribunal (UT), appeals against tribunal decisions, and judicial review by and of the UT.
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An employee seeking the enforcement of a statutory right, or to obtain a remedy for a breach of that right, must present his claim to an employment tribunal. This chapter discusses the rules for making a claim to an employment tribunal and the employment tribunal procedure. It looks at time limits and the effective date of termination, and considers the mechanics of submitting and defending a claim; the various stages of proceedings such as preliminary hearings and case management as well as the final hearing; remedies including compensation, basic award and compensatory award; vexatious litigants; costs and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and beyond.
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Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta, Laurel Baig, Mary Fan, Christopher Gosnell, and Alex Whiting
This chapter discusses the process toward the eventual adoption of a Statute for a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) and the adoption of Statutes of various ad hoc international criminal courts. The process can be conceptualized in terms of several distinct phases: abortive early attempts (1919–45); the establishment of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals in the aftermath of the Second World War (1945–7); the post-Cold War ‘new world order’ and the establishment by the UN Security Council of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1993–4); the drafting and adoption of the ICC Statute (1994–8); and the establishment of ad hoc hybrid criminal courts.
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This chapter discusses the different functions in a court and how the court is composed of a tribunal of law and a tribunal of fact. In a jury trial, the judge decides matters of law and is the tribunal of law, while the jury is the ‘fact-finder’, the tribunal of fact. In a non-jury trial, the judge or magistrates perform both functions. This chapter discusses the functions of the judge in legal issues concerning evidence and, in particular, when a case is withdrawn from the jury because there is ‘no case’; judicial discretion; and admissibility of evidence illegally or unfairly obtained.
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3. The prosecution of international crimes:
The role of international and national courts and tribunals
This chapter offers a brief historical introduction to the rise of individual accountability for international crimes. It first outlines the history of war crimes prosecutions prior to the Nuremberg Trials. It then introduces the origins of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT), the conduct of the trial of the major war criminals, the legal controversies involved, and other post World War II proceedings. The remainder of the chapter provides an overview of national prosecutions after 1945 and the complexities involved in drafting national legislation allowing such prosecutions; examines the ‘rebirth’ of international criminal tribunals in the 1990s and early 2000s; and steps back to briefly survey the question of what international criminal law is for or what goals it is intended to serve.
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This chapter defines some key terms and then focuses on the two questions that are most often debated when people consider the revolution in employment regulation that has occurred in recent decades: Why have we seen such a growth in the extent to which the employment relationship is regulated in the UK? What are the advantages and disadvantages of increased employment regulation for the UK’s economy and people? In answering these questions the chapter introduces some of the major themes which underpin the evaluative material in this text. It also considers attempts made by recent governments to lessen the burden of regulation on employers, most of which have been widely perceived as having had, at best, very limited effect. Finally, it considers the consequences and impact of how employment tribunal fees before they were abolished, and looks at the decline in membership of trade unions and its effect.
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This chapter discusses tribunals and their role within the administrative justice system. It considers the purpose of tribunals, their advantages over the courts and the difference between tribunals and judicial review. The chapter than outlines the structure of tribunals, focusing on the two-tier system introduced by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and the roles of the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal. The ability to appeal from the First-tier Tribunal to the Upper Tribunal is then outlined together with the possibility of making an onward appeal on a point of law to the Court of Appeal and potentially direct to the Supreme Court. The chapter also analyses the development of ‘Cart judicial reviews’, which is when the Upper Tribunal is itself reviewed by the High Court, and scrutinises proposals to abolish this procedure. Different aspects of tribunal procedure, including oral or paper-based hearings, and different approaches to conducting oral hearings are also discussed. The chapter concludes by considering potential reforms, including the move to holding tribunals online.
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Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. This chapter explains how international law is made through the formation of customary international law and the making of treaties, and how tribunals apply other sources of law such as ‘general principles’ of law and ‘soft law’ principles derived from resolutions of international organizations.
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This chapter considers the main ways in which disputes between individuals and public bodies are resolved outside the court system in what is widely referred to as the landscape of ‘administrative justice’. The discussions cover initial decision-making; accessing the administrative justice ‘system’; and the two pillars of administrative justice—tribunals and ombuds.
