The tribunal panel




A full tribunal consists of a legally qualified chairperson (called an employment judge) and two lay members, one drawn from a panel of employer representatives and one from a panel of employee representatives. Many tribunal claims are now heard by an employment judge sitting alone. These include all claims for unpaid wages, holiday, redundancy payments, interim relief and unfair dismissal and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). An employment judge has the discretion to order that a claim be heard by a full panel, but such hearings are increasingly rare. The loss of experienced lay members, especially in unfair dismissal claims, is generally viewed as a retrograde step, moving ever further away from the tribunal’s originally intended role as an industrial jury.