header-logo header-logo

Employment tribunals: room for improvement?

10 October 2019 / Shantha David
Issue: 7859 / Categories: Opinion , Employment
printer mail-detail
Claims in the employment tribunals have increased, but is justice being delivered? Shantha David reports

When employment tribunal (ET) fees were declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court, Lord Justice Reed in his seminal judgment in R (on the application of Unison) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51, [2017] 4 All ER 903 established that ‘the constitutional right of access to the courts is inherent in the rule of law’ [66].

He emphasised that the ‘right of access to the courts has long been recognised’ and cited Magna Carta as ‘a guarantee of access to courts which administer justice promptly and fairly’ [74].

So what has happened to ET claims in the two years since this momentous decision?

The rise & fall in ET claims

We know that following a peak in 2009–10, year on year, fewer claims were being lodged in ETs. When fees were introduced in July 2013, there was a dramatic overall drop of about 70% of single claims.

The latest government statistics published

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
back-to-top-scroll