From 6th January 2025 the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024, SI 2024/1155 will come into effect. This replaces the rules of procedure already contained in Schedule 1 of the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) regulations 2013.
In overview the rules largely restate the previous rules with some amendments, I will briefly touch upon some of the most commonly used rules.
Shall/Must
A reoccurring theme throughout the rules is the change from shall to must creating a higher duties on the Tribunal and parties in engagement with the rules such as that noted at new rule 3, the overriding objective
Rule 5 – time
(2) If the time specified by these Rules, a practice direction or an order for doing any act ends on a day other than a working day, the act is done in time if it is done before midnight on the next working day.
What this perhaps shows is a change of mindset as to how the working week operates in practice. It is now common place for people to be working on the hours that suit them rather than what would not 5 years ago have been considered a normal 9-5.
Regulation 10 B, now rule 7
Whilst there majority of the changes appear to be focused on the numbering of the rules, there is a clear noticeable increase in the to the powers open to staff appointed under S40(1) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and or Section 2(1) of the Courts Act 2003. The staff of the Tribunals where permitted can carry out functions of a judicial nature permitted or required to be done by the Tribunal.
New Rules 14(4) and 20
The wording of the rules has been clarified to state that the date the defect is rectified is the date that the application to rectify the defect is received not presented.
New Rule 16
HMCTS began reforming the employment tribunal process in 2022 and in 2024 MyHMCTS portal was rolled out. This has moved professional representatives and all users from predominantly email based filing to the portal. Rule 16 reflects this, removing the need to send a black response form with the notice of claim.
New rule 59
The requirement for a Judgment to be signed by the Judge has been removed and this now requires that it be approved by them.
This amendment appears to be a direct result of the consultations exercised by the Tribunal Procedure Committee between 30th July 2024 and 22nd October 2024 in which the majority of responders were of the view that this unnecessary administrative burden on the Tribunal was “out of step with the increased digitisation of the Tribunal system.”
New rule 90
In addition to an application for a witness order, national security cases are expressly exempt from the requirement to copy other parties into correspondence with the Tribunal where in the interests of national security.
For a side by side analysis of which rules have changed click on the link here.
Jolene Charalambous
9 St John Street Chambers