Applying EU law

The EAT has held that an employment tribunal was wrong to refuse to accept an application because the employee did not have the two years' service that was necessary at the time to claim unfair dismissal. The EAT says that tribunals have to take account of two systems of law, the EU system and the national system. Before rejecting his claim the tribunal should have given the employee the opportunity to refer his case to the ECJ. Until such time as the ECJ had considered the legal arguments over the impact of the two-year qualification, which it eventually did, in the case of Seymour Smith, the tribunal did not have the right to prevent the application from proceeding.

(Marshall v NW London Mental Health Trust [30/98])