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The tribunal system of the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and No ...
is part of the national system of administrative justice with tribunals classed as
non-departmental public bodies In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of na ...
(NDPBs). Tribunals operate formal processes to adjudicate disputes in a similar way to courts of law, but have different rules and procedures; and operate only in a specialised area. In theory, their procedures may be better suited for particular types of disputes, cheaper to administer and require less-qualified officials. In the case of appeals, however, disputes will enter the conventional court system, possibly reaching the Court of Appeal and
UK Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (initialism: UKSC or the acronym: SCOTUK) is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the Unite ...
, so the judiciary still have oversight over the tribunals. Parties are sometimes represented by lawyers at tribunals. Examples of tribunals include
employment tribunal Employment tribunals are tribunal public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redu ...
s,
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adjudicators, the Gender Recognition Panel, the
Planning Inspectorate The Planning Inspectorate for England (sometimes referred to as PINS) is an executive agency of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities of the United Kingdom Government with responsibility for making decisions and providing r ...
and the Company Names Tribunal. Though it has grown up on an ''ad hoc'' basis since the beginning of the twentieth century, from 2007 reforms were put in place to build a unified system with recognised judicial authority, routes of
appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
and regulatory supervision. The UK tribunal system is headed by the Senior President of Tribunals.


Structure

The
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for several diverse matters relating to the law, some of them being significant changes to the structure of the courts and fundamental ...
created a new unified structure for tribunals and recognises legally qualified members of tribunals as members of the judiciary of the United Kingdom who are guaranteed continued
judicial independence Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government or from private or partisan inte ...
. The Act created two new tribunals to which pre-existing
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Ju ...
s were transferred: namely a First-tier Tribunal and an Upper Tribunal. The tribunals are divided into several "chambers", grouped around broad subject headings. All legally qualified members take the title of judge. There is a right of appeal on a question of law from the First-tier to the Upper Tribunal and some limited jurisdiction for
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompa ...
. The Upper Tribunal is a senior
court of record A court of record is a trial court or appellate court in which a record of the proceedings is captured and preserved, for the possibility of appeal. A court clerk or a court reporter takes down a record of oral proceedings. That written record ( ...
. There is a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales,
Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland The courts of Northern Ireland are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in Northern Ireland: they are constituted and governed by the law of Northern Ireland. Prior to the partition of Ireland, Northern I ...
or
Court of Session The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh ...
(Scotland). The Act created the office of Senior President of Tribunals, appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the
Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
. Lord Justice Carnwath was appointed as the first holder of the post on 12 November 2007. The Act also transferred 107 existing tribunals to the supervision of the Council. However, many tribunals still lie outside the new system. Chambers are created flexibly by the Lord Chancellor in consultation with the Senior President of Tribunals and each has its own Chamber President. There is a Tribunals Procedure Committee to which the first transitional appointments were made on 19 May 2008. The office of the President of Welsh Tribunals was created by the Wales Act 2017 and the first senior judicial role which relates solely to Wales. Tribunal judgments carry a right to a warrant of execution or entry on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines and no longer require to be registered in the
County Court A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions (subnational entities) within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of ''county courts'' held by the hig ...
or High Court.


Law governing process

The decision making processes of tribunals can be quite heterogeneous. Though often having procedures that very much resemble those of a court of law, common law and legislative rules about court proceedings do not apply directly to tribunals. Tribunals often have their power granted to them by an act of parliament, and conventionally, in English constitutional law the judiciary cannot invalidate legislation, as the UK does not have an entrenched, written constitution. However the process of judicial reviews allow courts to challenge decisions made by tribunals. To a degree these set out some common law rules for how tribunals can make decisions. Constraints include a right to a fair hearing, duty to give reasons for decision, decisions that must be rational, the right for decisions to be decided by unbiased parties


Comparison to mediation

Tribunals are not the only court-like organizations that operate outside the court system. There are organisations offering
Mediation Mediation is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party neutral assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are ...
and
Alternative Dispute Resolution Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for ...
, often with specialised adjudicators and formal procedures. These approaches differ because involvement is voluntary for both parties, and rulings are often non-binding.


Social Security Tribunals

The Social Security Act 1975 established a system of local tribunals to adjudicate disputes with decisions made by insurance officers. Above that a decision could be made to a Commissioner, and from there to the Court of Appeal. Appeals against decisions made by the Attendance Allowance Board went directly to a Commissioner. Disablement questions were decided by a medical board, and an appeal could be made to a medical appeal tribunal, and from there to the Commissioners. In 1983 the national insurance local tribunals and the supplementary benefit appeal tribunals were merged by the Health And Social Services And Social Security Adjudications Act 1983. Decisions of the commissioners were published and a loose leaf Digest of Commissioners Decisions was produced by
HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...
, compiled by Desmond Neligan OBE, a retired National Insurance Commissioner. Social security and child support tribunals were brought into a common administration system by the
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for several diverse matters relating to the law, some of them being significant changes to the structure of the courts and fundamental ...
.


History

The earliest extant tribunal are the General Commissioners of Income Tax created in 1799.


Early twentieth century (1911–1945)

The UK tribunal system can be seen as beginning with the coming into force of the
National Insurance Act 1911 The National Insurance Act 1911 created National Insurance, originally a system of health insurance for industrial workers in Great Britain based on contributions from employers, the government, and the workers themselves. It was one of the foun ...
which provided for adjudication of disputes by appeal to the Insurance Commissioners, and from there to the county court. During the twentieth century, UK
government minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘ prime minister’ ...
s acquired more and more power and were vested with decisions that affected the day-to-day life of citizens.


Post World War II (1945–1957)

In 1954, the government was embarrassed by the Crichel Down affair which focused public fears about
maladministration Maladministration is the actions of a government body which can be seen as causing an injustice. The law in the United Kingdom says Ombudsmen must investigate maladministration. The definition of maladministration is wide and can include: *Dela ...
and the abuse of executive authority. The magnitude and complexity of ministerial decisions had caused many such decisions gradually to be delegated to a growing number of tribunals and in 1955, the government used the debate created by Crichel Down to order a committee under Sir Oliver Franks to report on administrative tribunals and inquiries, though not ministerial decisions of the kind that Crichel Down had exposed. The Franks Report was published in July 1957 and its principal effect was to move tribunals from an executive and administrative model towards a judicial footing. Franks identified three principles for the operation of tribunals: *Openness; *Fairness; and *Impartiality.


Council on Tribunals (1958–2007)

The report resulted in the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958 which established the Council on Tribunals, which started work in 1959. The Council's principal responsibilities were to: *Keep under review the constitution and working of the tipulatedtribunals ... and, from time to time, to report on their constitution and working; *Consider and report on matters referred to the Council under the Act with respect to tribunals other than the ordinary courts of law, whether or not tipulated and *Consider and report on matters referred to the Council, or matters the Council may consider to be of special importance, with respect to administrative procedures which involve or may involve the holding of a
statutory inquiry The Inquiries Act 2005 (c 12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to the explanatory notes, published by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Act "is intended to provide a comprehensive statutory framework for ...
by or on behalf of a Minister.


Scotland

The Scottish ministers appointed two or three council members and three or four non-members to a Scottish Committee of which the
Parliamentary Ombudsman Parliamentary Ombudsman ( fi, Eduskunnan oikeusasiamies, sv, Riksdagens ombudsman, is, Umboðsmaður Alþingis, da, Folketingets Ombudsmand, no, Sivilombudet) is the name of the principal ombudsman institutions in Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norw ...
and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman were ''
ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...
'' members. The Scottish Committee supervised certain tribunals operating in Scotland and had the right to be consulted by the council before any report about a Scottish tribunal or, in some cases, the right to report themselves to the Scottish ministers.


Northern Ireland

The Council had no authority to deal with any matter over which the
Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore or ...
had power to make laws.


Reform (1988–2007)

Tribunals had long been criticised.
Lord Scarman Leslie George Scarman, Baron Scarman, (29 July 1911 – 8 December 2004) was an English judge and barrister, who served as a Law Lord until his retirement in 1986. Early life and education Scarman was born in Streatham but grew up on the bord ...
had seen them as a danger to the prestige of the
judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
and the authority of the ordinary law. In 1988 there were calls for an Administrative Review Council to provide independent scrutiny on the Australian model but such ideas were rejected. Though the system was little altered by the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992, at the start of the twenty-first century there were further calls for reform that led to the creation of the
Tribunals Service The Tribunals Service was an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice in the United Kingdom between April 2006 and March 2011. The Tribunals Service was responsible for: * Adjudicator for HM Land Registry * Asylum and Immigration Tribunal * C ...
in 2006, as an
executive agency An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or N ...
to manage and administer tribunals, and to the
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for several diverse matters relating to the law, some of them being significant changes to the structure of the courts and fundamental ...
.Department of Constitutional Affairs (2004)


See also

* List of tribunals in the United Kingdom * Franks Report (1957) *
Federal tribunals in the United States Federal tribunals in the United States are those tribunals established by the federal government of the United States for the purpose of resolving disputes involving or arising under federal laws, including questions about the constitutionality ...


References


Bibliography

* * *Franks, O. (1957) ''Report of the Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Enquiries'', Cmnd. 218, 5s * (
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) * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tribunals In The United Kingdom United Kingdom administrative law