Senior President of Tribunals Sir Ernest Ryder’s annual report has highlighted the national shortage of judges.
Tribunal judges across the board lamented the lack of judges in the report, published last week. The Supreme Court’s decision last year that employment tribunal fees are unlawful gave rise to an immediate 64% overall increase in new claims brought and a ‘significant increase’ in the number of new appeals, the report stated.
In his contribution, Mr Justice Lane, president of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, reported a ‘significant rise’ in work coming from the First-Tier Tribunal.
‘There is a pressing need for more salaried Upper Tribunal judges and a Judicial Appointments Commission competition for these is due to launch soon,’ he said.
Appeals against decisions of the Department for Work and Pensions have also increased rapidly this year, according to Judge John Aitken, president of the Social Entitlement Chamber. He said the work increase had ‘outstripped our ability to recruit and train sufficient numbers of panel members to keep pace’.
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