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. However, many tribunal claims are now heard by an employment judge sitting alone instead of a full tribunal. These include all claims for unpaid wages, holiday, redundancy payments, interim relief and unfair dismissal and appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). In some other jurisdictions, a case can be heard by a judge alone if the parties agree. 



In this context, it is worth noting that while a claim for unfair dismissal can be heard by a judge sitting alone even if it is trade union-related, a claim for trade union detriment (section 146, TULRCA) must be heard by a full tribunal panel (Birring v Michael Rogers and Another t/a Charity Link [2015] UKEAT/0388/14/RN). See Chapter 5: trade union victimisation.



An employment judge has the discretion to order that a claim be heard by a full panel of members, but full panel 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.