PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Bias, misconduct and procedural irregularity
Following a 14-day hearing the ET comprehensively rejected a large number of claims.
The Claimant appealed on the basis of ‘apparent bias’ on the part of the Employment Judge. She relied on two incidents during the hearing; the first arose from questions asked of the Claimant by the Employment Judge at the conclusion of her evidence; the second from his treatment of her counsel following an incident between counsel where the Claimant’s counsel had stated that conduct by her opponent could be seen as an attempt to corrupt the witness evidence.
On analysing the facts and looking at what happened in context, the EAT decided that a fair-minded and informed observer would not have concluded that there was a real possibility that the Employment Judge was biased against the Claimant.
The appeal therefore failed.
Citations:
[2018] UKEAT 0191 – 17 – 0602
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 22 April 2022; Ref: scu.616874