The Supreme Court’s ruling that employment tribunal fees ‘are unfair, therefore they are unlawful’ is ‘surprising’, a senior employment law solicitor has said.
Writing in this week’s NLJ, GSC Solicitors partner Tessa Fry points out that most of the evidence was rejected by the High Court and the Court of Appeal, whereas the Supreme Court ‘accepted almost all of Unison’s arguments some of which were based on hypothetical examples and assumptions, rather than actual evidence’.
Fry says the introduction of fees was not the sole reason for the decline in tribunal cases, for example, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal was raised from one to two years, compensation for unfair dismissal was limited to 12 months’ pay, and tribunals were given increased powers to strike out claims at an early stage.
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