An online employment tribunal?


In summer 2015, the government announced an intention to modernise the civil court systems, including the employment tribunal, to make more effective use of modern technological systems, to achieve administrative savings, and to provide some sort of redress for claimants who cannot afford to access the courts and tribunals. Lord Justice Briggs was commissioned to conduct a review. His interim report, published in January 2016, robustly criticised the existing civil court system for failing to provide access to justice for “any but the most wealthy individuals, placing litigants in person at a grave disadvantage". 


The final report is expected in July 2016. The proposals in the interim report envisage dramatic changes to the current judicial system.


There is to be extensive digitalising of the system to enable greater use of new technologies.


However, the report goes further, suggesting that claims worth £25,000 or less could be dealt with by a new online court. Cases would be resolved either by a judge examining the papers (i.e. with no hearing), or if there was a hearing, it could be conducted entirely by Skype or over the phone. Many functions currently undertaken by judges would be dealt with instead by case officers, supervised by judges. 


The online hearing would be before a judge, who would be expected to take a more “inquisitorial” approach. Both sides would be expected to be able to represent themselves. 


There are serious concerns about the suitability of employment disputes for online resolution, not least given the resource imbalance between the parties and the often complex factual issues that must be decided, irrespective of the claim’s value. 


The report also proposes integrating the civil court and employment tribunal system, which would see the differences between the two jurisdictions described elsewhere in this Chapter (for example, when making contract claims) fall away. 


Fundamental changes of the kind contemplated in this report require extensive consultation and planning over several years but this report provides a good indicator of current policy direction with regard to the long-term future of the employment tribunal system.