Chapter 23: Tribunals

TRIBUNALS

Administrative : deals with rights given by legislation in relation to 
                       housing, employment and education.

Domestic : deals with matters of discipline within particular professions.

• Many tribunals specialise in one area of law, each handle about a million cases year.
• Deals with disputes of different professions : medical, legal edc.
• Decisions of tribunals are often based on the the rules of the organisation they deal with.
• Still, all tribunals are required to conform to the same standards of justice.
  
• Around since 1799. 

• Deals with fundamental issues in people's lives like
  housing, employment and education.
  
  

  REFORM

• Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007
• Contained a long review of the Tribunal service.
• Sir Andrew Leggatt conducted the review of 
  
  

  1) Franks Report - investigated workings of tribunals.

  2) Funding and Management

  3) Structure & Standards

Did these comply with the Human Rights Act of 1998?
SO to test it, they introduced benchmarks, some listed here.

• an accesible and supportive system
• simple procedures
• providing proportionate remedies
• authority and expertise provided for relevant case.
• cost-effectiveness.

Leggatt View Criticisms.

1) Lack of Accesibility.

• All tribunals should be open to the public
• Have people made aware of tribuanals;
• People aware of their right to use it.
• However, some cases must be sensitive in the right to publicise a citizen's rights.

2) Lack of Coherence.

• Each tribunal is responsible of one area of Law; legal, medical.
• Makes system self contained, lacking coherence as one body.
• Each tribunal may have different procedures regarding the organisation they work with.
• No uniformity, lacked high standard of justce.

3) Not User Friendly.

• Original intention - to be user friendly by having an easy access to justice.
• Over time, tribunals morphed into courts (procedures and practices)
• Makes it…