Tribunals Flashcards
What are Administrative Tribunals?
Administrative tribunals deal with disputes between individual and state concerning social welfare legislation, such as land, social security and immigration
Tribunals (Intro)
- Operate alongside court system, handling over 1 million cases a year.
- Become an important part of the legal system.
- Act as specialist courts, dealing with disputes in specialist areas, mainly concerning welfare and social rights
What are Domestic Tribunals?
They are internal, used in disputes concerning private bodies, such as law society and General Medical Council
Explain the History
- Present system has developed since WWII
- Developed to give people a method of enforcing entitlement (housing education, employment)
- These areas were considered to be private.
- Growth in legislation gave people rights to school and being sacked unfarily, rules placed limits, number of disputes courts were unfit to handle
Frank Report 1957
- Investigated working of tribunals
- Was to become an increasingly important part of Legal System
- Tribunal procedures were open fair and impartial.
- Recommended a council to supervise
- 1958 council was set up to supervise ‘watchdog with no teeth’
Why were Tribunals confusing at first? (Leggatt)
Tribunals were set up in a welfare state
Every new development meant new tribunal
Over 70 with seperate procedures
Confusion and complicated
What was the Legatt Report
- 2000, labour Gov asked Sir Andrew Leggatt to review the funding and management of tribunals, structure and standards, and if it complied with HRA 1998.
- Recommended a radical reformation of tribunals.
- Of the 70 tribunals to offer in E & W, they varied from ‘excellent to inadequate’
- In particular concerned with lack of coherence, and how it is not always user friendly
What reforms were made?
- Tribunals were eventually reformed by Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, addressing the reforms the Leggatt recommended
- Tribunal Service unified different procedures and addressed Leggatts concers
- First Tier and Upper Tier Tribunals within which are Chambers
What are First Tier Tribunals?
- Deal with 300,000 cases per year
- Over 200 judges and 3,100 lay members
- In it contains 7 chambers
- Employment Tribunals not included in this structure not included as it is believed disputes dealt with by Employment Appeal Tribunals are very different, so they remain separate but may become a part of it.
What are Upper Tier Tribunals?
- There are 4 chambers within Upper Tier tribunals.
- From Upper Tier tribunals there is a further possible appeal route to the Court of Appeal and then finally to the Supreme Court
What is Composition?
First Tier tribunal cases are heard by a tribunal judge. Two lay members, who have special expertise, will join the tribunal judge in certain cases. They are appointed by the Judicial Appointment Committee.
What is Procedure?
- Both parties will be given an opportunity to put forward their case.
- In some tribunals, especially employment and asylum tribunals, the witness must give evidence on an oath and be cross examined.
- Other tribunals are far less formal, and when an applicant puts forward their case, tribunal judges make sure they do so fully.
- The decision of the Tribunal is binding.
What is the Administrative Justice and Tribunal Council?
After 2007, the Council on Tribunals was replaced by the Administrative Justice and Tribunal Council, which had a lot more power than the previous council.
Its duties included: keeping the procedures of tribunals under review and reporting any matter to do with tribunals
What did Leggatt Recommend?
- Single Route of Appeal
- Make the system more user friendly
- Put all the tribunals into divisions, grouping all of the relevant ones
- Set up a council responsible for the administration of tribunals
Advantages
- Speed
- Cost
- Informality
- Flexibility
- Specialisation
- Relief of Congestion on ordinary courts
- Privacy
