Criticism
Lay members, or wing members, can add significant value to proceedings at Employment Appeal Tribunals. They are normally experienced HR professionals, small business owners and trade union officials who provide insight to the judge on workplace issues, thus providing a context for the claim being made. This prevents rash decisions being made and improves the quality of decision making.
The Coalition ' s reform in this area could lead to less accurate and justified judgements being made.
Justice Underhill changes to claims process Changes
The way claims are processed is to change under Justice Underhill ' s recommendations, including new ' strike out ' powers that will see cases deemed as ' weak ' thrown out of the process before they are heard by a tribunal, a simplification of the process, and the separation of pre-hearing reviews and case management discussions.
Criticism
The changes brought in under Justice Underhill ' s recommendations are largely technical issues that there is broad agreement to. However, there is some concern that allowing the dismissal of claims that are deemed to be weak before they have been heard by tribunal may be risky. Thompsons Solicitors warned that such decisions must be made according to the content of the claim and not on how the ET1 form is filled out.
The IER supports the simplification of the employment tribunal process, but reform must never make it more likely that rash decisions will be made.
Public Interest Disclosure Act
This section is authored by Catherine Hobby, Senior Lecturer, School of Law & Social
Sciences, University of East London
Three significant amendments are made by the ERRA to the whistleblowing provisions enacted by the Public Interest
Disclosure Act 1998( PIDA), as follows:
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