The hearing

Once any preliminary issues have been resolved, the claim proceeds to a full hearing. This nearly always takes place in public. In cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct or disability cases involving evidence of a personal nature, the tribunal may issue a restricted reporting order, which may apply permanently or just until the date of the judgment.

Tribunals must demonstrate an absence of bias and give both parties the right to state their case and respond to any allegations made against them.

It is important to present all of the case law that could be relevant to your case, as well as focusing on the words of the legislation. If the tribunal is aware of a relevant case that it wants to take into account, it must ask both parties to make representations on it. If it fails to do so, the hearing will be unfair (Albion Hotel (Freshwater) Ltd v Maia e Silva [2002] IRLR 200).

You have the right to be represented by an individual of your choice (Bache v Essex CC [2000] IRLR 251), or to represent yourself. If the tribunal disapproves of the behaviour of your representative, it can warn you that it believes the representative’s behaviour is inappropriate and that you risk rejection of your claim. On the basis of this, you can decide whether you want to keep or change your representative.

You can call witnesses in support of your claim, and if necessary you can ask the tribunal to issue a witness order compelling them to attend. This might be necessary, for example, if an employer is unwilling to give a witness time off work to attend the hearing. Once an order has been issued, an employer has to allow the time off. The tribunal has discretion over whether to grant a witness order, and will take into account the relevance of the witness’s evidence (Noorani v Merseyside TEC [1999] IRLR 184). Witness orders should not generally be used to compel an unwilling witness, as you cannot be confident as to what they are going to say and the evidence they give may not help your case.