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	United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Hawwari v British Broadcasting Corporation & Ors [1999] UKEAT 1486_98_1810 (18 October 1999) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1999/1486_98_1810.html Cite as: [1999] UKEAT 1486_98_1810

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APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE LINDSAY (PRESIDENT): We have before us, as a preliminary hearing, the appeal of Mr A Hawwari, in the matter of Hawwari against, firstly, British Broadcasting Corporation, secondly Mr Martin Broughton, thirdly Mr Gamon McLellan and fourthly Mr Jeff Dawes. There was a decision at London North under the Chairmanship of Mr P R K Menon. The decision was promulgated on 16 October 1998 after a hearing in August 1998 that had spread itself over six days.

1. We take the view that it is impossible for us to take an informed view, even at the preliminary stage, as to whether Mr Hawwari has any arguable prospect of success on any point of law without two things at least being in front of us; firstly, a copy of the directions which were given by the Employment Tribunal by Mrs Mason in this matter on 26 March 1998, and, secondly, a copy of the Applicant's letter of 18 March 1997 which was said to have particularised his complaint.
2. It may be that there were other interlocutory orders that took place before the substantive hearing which began on 4 August 1998 and, in order that the adjourned preliminary hearing should have a sufficient understanding of the full procedural history of this matter, the Employment Tribunal must be asked to supply all orders made in this matter (which in their terms was No 220/1914/97) prior to 16 October 1998 which was the date when the substantive hearing was promulgated.
3. That is one ground for adjournment, but there is another. One of Mr Hawwari's points is that contrary to the direction that he says he was given by Mrs Mason on 26 March 1998, the Chairman at the substantive hearing, Mr Menon, refused, says Mr Hawwari, to hear an issue which Mrs Mason had directed to be heard. Well, plainly, we will need, as we have already mentioned, Mrs Mason's directions and the particularisation of Mr Hawwari's case but we also would find it valuable, indeed essential, to have Mr Menon's comments. As is the EAT's practice in a case such as this, it wrote to the appropriate Employment Tribunal in London North asking whether the Chairman, Mr Menon, wished to comment on that allegation by Mr Hawwari, namely that Mr Menon had intervened to stop the development by Mr Hawwari of a particular argument on a question which Mrs Mason had directed to be heard. That request was made on 28 January 1999 but there was no answer. A further request was made on 9 March 1999. There was no answer to that either, even though the letter said inter alia:

"If the Chairman does not intend to comment I would be grateful for confirmation to this effect."

Still, there was no answer. On 2 April 1999 a fax was sent by the EAT asking whether the Chairman would be commenting. Then we have a note in our papers which says very boldly:

"Mr Menon has refused to reply to our letters … and provide comment."

4. That is not the whole of the note, but that is the gist of it. That note is not signed in our papers and no source is given for the information. We find it difficult to believe that, if Mr Menon had, indeed, had a sight of Mr Hawwari's Notice of Appeal and had indeed been shown the letters that had been written from the EAT and the fax that had been sent by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, that, as a person charged with the important task of a Chairman in the administration of justice, he would have failed to co-operate. We can only assume, in the face of such doubt, that either he was not shown the EAT's requests or that he has not refused to answer as the EAT's unsubstantiated note in our papers suggests.
5. The better course, as it seems to us, is thus for Mr Menon to be sent a transcript of this judgment and a fresh copy of Mr Hawwari's Notice of Appeal, as there is plainly room for doubt as to whether the EAT's communications have been getting through to him. He should be asked personally to acknowledge receipt of the papers sent to him. In what is surely an unlikely event, if, once he has seen the papers, Mr Menon still withholds his comments, we shall have to consider Mr Hawwari's renewed preliminary hearing in the light of such reticence. But we find it difficult to imagine any more unsatisfactory outcome than that the substantive hearing, which took, as I have mentioned, some six days, should have its outcome jeopardised and a remission afresh made perhaps possible simply for want of the EAT being given the assistance which it is habitually given by the Employment Tribunal Chairman.
6. Leaving aside, then, Mr Menon's comments, for the moment we adjourn the preliminary hearing generally; we require a copy of Mrs Mason's directions of 26 March 1998; we require a copy of Mr Hawwari's letter of 18 March 1997; we would wish to see all or any other interlocutory directions and orders which were given in this matter ET/2201914/97 before 16 October 1998 and we direct the matter to return to a panel of three (which is to include the President but not necessarily the two colleagues sitting with me today) for the matter to be restored here as soon as possible after those documents have come to hand unless by then Mr Menon shall have indicated that preparation of his comments is in hand, in which case the matter can be restored not earlier than 14 days after he has indicated that the matter is so in hand. But subject to that, we adjourn the preliminary hearing to come on again later in the manner we have indicated.