The Manual of Employment Appeals

Citation

Guth, J. (2010), "The Manual of Employment Appeals", International Journal of Law and Management, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 163-164. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542431011029451

“Employment disputes that go all the way to a full tribunal hearing tend to generate strong feelings, and in every case somebody has to lose” (p. 1). The person that loses will want to know their options, will want to know whether they can appeal and if they can whom that appeal must be addressed to. The Manual of Employment Appeals sets out to answer these questions and in my opinion does so well.

The book is logically set out beginning with a summary or overview of employment appeals, time limits and the nature of the Employment Appeals Tribunal. This first chapter is a great first reference point raising important issues (such as time limits) from the outset and guiding the reader to the sections of the book relevant to them. In fact the book is very manageable overall, the index is intuitive and thorough and the contents pages are very comprehensive. The layout of the book with clear headings and nicely spaced and numbered paragraphs also make it easy to read and content easy to find.

Following on from the summary the authors offer chapters on Review by the Employment Tribunal, the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. These chapters are all what you would expect of a good manual. They are written well, set out clearly and logically and are easy to follow. Chapters 6 and 7 then deal with references to the European Court of Justice and bringing a case to the European Court of Human Rights, respectively. Although these two chapters are perhaps a little less comprehensive than the earlier ones, they nonetheless give clear information that is sufficient to allow the reader to get an overview of procedure and requirements and seek further advice where appropriate.

Chapters 8 and 9 deal with Grounds of Appeal generally and the jurisdiction, constitution and power of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. While I found these chapters to be as well written as the others I am not sure where in the book they best fit. I would have liked some of this information earlier on the book but am struggling to identify a place it could logically go. Coming towards the end also does not seem right as it is reasonable to assume that someone wishing to appeal a tribunal decision would want to know about the possible grounds of appeal as early on in the process as possible.

Having said that, the book is not intended to be read cover to cover but rather to be dipped into as and when necessary for the information required at that time. Viewed like this it does not really matter where these chapters are as long as the information in them is well indexed.

The only chapter I am not so keen on is chapter 10 which contains a number of case summaries. While these may prove useful to practitioners and interesting to others, it is not really clear why that chapter is included or what its purpose is. It needs an introduction clarifying how the case summaries can help and why and how the cases included have been chosen.

I would recommend this book for those having to concern themselves with appeals in employment disputes. It is easy to find the information you are looking for and where appropriate reference is made to additional materials such as Codes of Practice, case law or statutory material. Mostly these references are contained in footnotes leaving the text to flow and be accessible to non‐lawyers as well as experienced practitioners. However, there are some sections within the book where “legal speak” does take over and having a grasp of legal jargon will help. This is in my view inevitable when dealing with a topic such as this one and trying to take the jargon out or explain every phrase used would make the text unreadable or the advice meaningless because readers dealing with employment appeals will have to engage with at least some jargon at some point. Examples of case scenarios used to illustrate points are particularly useful here and are well used by the authors. Overall I think the authors have it right; the text is written in such a way that makes it accessible and keep jargon to a minimum. Where jargon is used, the clear structure and style of writing make sure non‐lawyers are not alienated.

The book contains a number of Appendices in which key pieces of legislation and sections from the relevant Practice Directions are reproduced. This is a useful feature for trained lawyers although much of the material may appear quite daunting to non‐lawyers. The book also comes with a CD Rom which contains the full text of the documents included in the appendices. I am not sure how useful this is, especially given that most of those documents are easily publicly available anyway.

As with all books detailing the law, there is a risk that the book will date quickly. This first edition has given the authors an excellent platform to update their work in the future. I am not aware of any direct competition to this book but I do think at £120 it is too expensive.

I think this book is really useful for employment lawyers, staff working in human resources or personnel related fields as well as others providing advice on or dealing with employment disputes which may go on to appeal. In short, it does what it says on the back cover: “It provides a step‐by‐step guide to challenging decision of Employment Tribunals… ” albeit at quite a price.