Employment Tribunal fees ruled unlawful

26 July 2017

The Supreme Court has today ruled unanimously that the high issue fees imposed by the Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal Fees Order 2013 has the effect of preventing access to justice and is discriminatory against women and must be quashed.

Giving the lead judgment, Lord Reed said that the constitutional right of access to the courts is inherent in the rule of law: it is needed to ensure that the laws created by Parliament and the courts are applied and enforced. Tribunals are more than merely the providers of a service which is only of value to those who bring claims before them. While court fees for small claims are related to the value of the claim, the ET and EAT fees bear no direct relation to the amount sought and can therefore be expected to act as a deterrent to claims for modest amounts or non-monetary remedies (which together form the majority of ET claims).

The evidence before the Court showed that the effect of the Fees Order was a dramatic and persistent fall in the number of claims brought in ETs, with a greater fall in the number of lower value claims and claims in which a financial remedy was not sought. Fees were the most frequently cited reason for not submitting a claim.

The question of whether fees effectively prevent access to justice must be decided according to the likely impact of the fees on behaviour in the real world. Fees must be affordable not in a theoretical sense, but in the sense that they can reasonably be afforded. Where households on low to middle incomes can only afford fees by forgoing an acceptable standard of living, the fees cannot be regarded as affordable. Even where fees are affordable, they prevent access to justice where they render it futile or irrational to bring a claim, for example where in claims for modest or no financial awards no sensible claimant will bring a claim unless he can be virtually certain he will succeed, that the award will include recovery of fees, and that the award will be satisfied in full.

The Fees Order is also unlawful because it contravenes the EU law guarantee of an effective remedy before a tribunal: it imposes disproportionate limitations on the enforcement of EU employment rights.

Baroness Hale added that the Fees Order is indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010 because the higher fees for type B claims put women at a particular disadvantage, because a higher proportion of women bring type B than bring type A claims. The charging of higher fees was not a proportionate means of achieving the stated aims of the Fees Order.

To download and read the full judgment click here.

To read the BBC news report click here.

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