LEGAL CHALLENGE TO ?BRUTAL? TRIBUNAL FEES

The Government’s controversial plans to start charging for the use of the currently free Employment Tribunal system have (finally) met a challenge.

UNISON, one of Britain’s biggest trade unions, will lodge an application for a Judicial Review in the High Court against the fees which are due to come into force at the end of July 2013.

The grounds for the Judicial Review are as follows:

  1. Employment Tribunal fees would make it impossible or excessively difficult to exercise individual rights conferred by European Community law and that reasonable people?would not litigate?to vinidivate their EU rights in such circumstances

  2. That introducing fees for the Employment Tribunal and not for the First-Tier Tribunal (a Tribunal concerned with asylum and immigration rights) breaches the principle of equivalence

  3. There has been no proper assessment of the Public Sector Equality Duty ? such an assessment should have been made to judge the potentially adverse effect of introducing fees in terms of the numbers and proportions of claims brought by individuals with protected characteristics

  4. That the fees are indirectly discriminatory ? that such fees will have a disproportionate adverse impact on women

Fees start at around ?160 to issue a claim, rising to ?250 a claim depending on the type of claim; On top of the initial fees to start the claim there is then a further hearing fee starting at ?230 and rising to ?950.

We await further developments.

If you need employment legal advice on employment tribunal claims on unfair dismissal, discrimination, breach of contract, unlawful deductions or any other employment matter, call us now on 0870 787 3688 or by e-mail to: info@pinnaclepartnership.co.uk

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