Proposed reforms to the Employment Tribunal system are good news for local employers according to city-based Roythornes Solicitors.
The news comes as former president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Mr Justice Underhill, published his report on the tribunal process.
Amongst his recommendations for streamlining the system is a ’sifting’ stage, where employment judges would look at cases and have the ability to strike out any which had no reasonable prospect of success.
Speaking about the measure, Phil Cookson of Roythornes said:
“If implemented, this will be good news for employers. There are cases where ex-employees will take a case to a tribunal which has no real chance of success, just to cause problems for the employers. Tribunals are expensive to defend and employers sometimes have no option but to spend time and money even if it is a ‘nuisance’ claim.”
“No one wants to remove the rights of employees to seek justice through the tribunal system, but a rule to remove the threat of this type of claim would be very good news.”
The proposals will now be put out to wider consultation later in the year.