Appeal No.	EAT/1491/01

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 16 January 2002

Before
MR RECORDER LANGSTAFF QC
MR A D TUFFIN CBE
MRS A GALLICO

1) MRS I MARYNOWSKA 2) MS G WALCZAK 3) MR R WALCZAK	APPELLANTS

RELIEF SOCIETY FOR POLES LTD	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellants	MS B TOBIASINSKY
(Representative)
Human Rights Protection for Poles Centre
96 Elthorne Avenue
London
W7 2JW	

MR RECORDER LANGSTAFF QC
1.	This is an appeal against an order which was made on 12th December 2001 directing that there should be a preliminary hearing. 

2.	The context of that order is this. Mrs Marynowska and two other Applicants complained that they had been denied redundancy payments in respect of employment, which they had with the Respondent for some years. There was also a claim, which at the moment it is difficult fully to understand, for relief under Section 7(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 in respect of ill-treatment and victimisation of Mrs Marynowska by the Managing Director of the company. 

3.	Those applications were dated 20th October 2001. The latest date upon which the employment of any of the Applicants ended was when Mrs Marynowska left employment on 22nd February 2001. It will immediately be apparent that the gap of nearly eight months is outside the time limits provided for the bringing of a claim in respect of redundancy pursuant to Section 164 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. That provides that 

“An employee does not have any right to a redundancy payment unless, before the end of the period of six months beginning with the relevant date – 
(c)		a question as to the employee’s right to, or the amount of, the payment has been referred to an [employment tribunal], or 
(d)		a complaint relating to his dismissal has been presented by the employee under Section 111”. 

4.	There are, however, provisions in Section 164(2) which permit in some limited circumstances an extension of that period of six months.On the face of it, therefore, the claims were out of time unless the Tribunal wished to exercise any discretion, which it could properly exercise, assuming that the factual circumstances, as referred to in Section 164, were satisfied.

5.	The Chairman, Mr Milton, at the Tribunal directed a preliminary hearing limited to consideration of the issue of whether some or all of the claims made by the Applicants should be struck out under rule 15(2)(c) as misconceived and/or outside the time limits specified by Section 164 Employment Rights Act 1996. He did not, by setting the hearing to consider that issue, make any decision about it. 

6.	It is important to make it plain that those issues remain to be determined by the Employment Tribunal and indeed, at paragraph 3 of his letter, the Chairman had indicated that the Tribunal might find in the Applicant’s favour in which case it would give directions and fix dates for a full hearing. That is an indication to us that the issue had not been decided and remained in balance depending upon the quality of the arguments made before the Chairman on 22nd January. 

7.	We can only interfere with the exercise of a Chairman’s discretion if there is some error of law which is apparent. There is no error of law in deciding that there should be a preliminary hearing to determine whether or not a claim is misconceived or has been brought outside the time limits. Indeed there is much to recommend it because if that issue is resolved against the Applicant, it saves time cost and inconvenience for all concerned. 

8.	We have been shown no reason by Ms Tobiasinsky, who appears for Mrs Marynowska and others, why the order is wrong and, indeed in the course of discussion this morning, she very frankly accepted that if the Employment Tribunal had not actually decided any issue against Mrs Marynowska and Mr Walczak then her clients would have no objection to the preliminary hearing going ahead. 

9.	We are grateful to her for her frankness and her help in recognising that. It makes our task all the easier in concluding that there is no legal merit in this appeal. 

10.	We should add that various other issues have been canvassed before us, both in documents and in argument, by Ms Tobiasinsky relating to her status as a vexatious litigant. We are not in a position to make any decision or determination about those issues because there is no case before us in respect of which we could do so. We merely mention that, so that it is on record that we have made no finding at all about those issues. We have been concerned purely with the case of Mrs Marynowska and whether or not it was properly within the Chairman’s powers to make the order which he did.

11.	For the reasons we have given we shall dismiss this appeal.