Postponement requests 


If you need to request an adjournment (i.e. postponement), you must apply to the tribunal with evidence to support your application, explaining why you need an adjournment and for how long. If the application is on medical grounds, you must provide medical evidence, such as a letter from your consultant or GP. It should explain clearly that you are too unwell to attend the hearing, and indicate when you are likely to be well enough. A GP certificate signing you off work is not good enough. 


In recent years, tribunals have become much tougher in their approach to adjournment requests, even by genuinely ill claimants. In Riley v The CPS [2013] EWCA Civ 951, the Court of Appeal said that the human right to have a fair trial within a reasonable time is available not just to the claimant but also to the employer and to other claimants waiting in the queue for their cases to be heard. 


New regulations (not yet made) will amend the tribunal rules of procedure to make it even harder for either party to obtain an adjournment. A maximum two postponement requests will be allowed, with a third only granted in exceptional circumstances. Any request made less than seven days before the hearing or at the hearing itself will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, and the tribunal will be required to consider ordering the party who wants the adjournment to compensate their opponent for the extra costs that are caused. This can be especially expensive where an employer has committed to pay barristers’ fees. Section 151 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (SBEEA), introducing these changes, came into force on 26 March 2015, but only in order to provide the power to make the regulations needed to change the rules.