Call Us
08000 224 224
Seriously damaging trust and confidence
Levels of interest
Bargaining on pensions
Revising TUPE
Unprotected sex discrimination
Cullen 2 Railtrack 0
Not yet come of age
R v Chief Constable of Merseyside Police ex parte Bennion [2001] IRLR 442
In ISSUE 55 (FEBRUARY 2001), we reported the welcome decision of the Administrative Court that a Chief Constable, named as a Respondent in a sex discrimination claim, could not preside over disciplinary proceedings against the same applicant because he "had an interest in the outcome" of the disciplinary proceedings.
That decision has now unfortunately been overturned by the Court of Appeal. In any case against a police force the Chief Constable is named as part of the technical rules - regardless of whether he or she has been personally involved in the case.
The Administrative Court had likened the position of the Chief Constable to that of a judge hearing a case involving a party against whom she or he had a dispute. The Court decided that the Chief Constable did have a sufficient interest in the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings as he was the head of the organisation accused of discrimination and the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings could impact on the discrimination complaint. But the Court of Appeal drew a distinction between the position of the Chief Constable and that of a judge based on the "managerial" responsibilities of the Chief Constable, and that it was usually thought to be beneficial for him, rather than the Chief Constable from another force, to preside over discipline matters. The Court of Appeal also state that the Chief Constable's interest in the disciplinary proceedings was insufficient to disqualify him because he was apparently not directly interested in the outcome of the discrimination claim - he was named in title only, and the complaint itself related to the conduct of the previous Chief Constable.
We are not so sure. If you're named as a respondent in a discrimination claim, whether through your job title or not, you are likely to be pretty "interested" in the outcome. Others may have thought that it was generally beneficial for the Chief Constable to preside over disciplinary hearings, but we can quite see why Mrs Bennion did not share that view.
It remains the case that where an individual is directly accused there is likely to be a breach of the rules of natural justice for them to participate in the proceedings in a judging or decision making capacity.