Issue 80 (June/July 2003)

Contents

On the move

It has been announced that the Employment Tribunal Service will move from DTI to the Department for Constitutional Affairs (the old Lord Chancellor's Department) following the proposals from the Leggatt Report.

In the short term this is likely to have little practical effect on Tribunal decisions but there may be implications for the staff. Whether it will result in a more coherent judicial approach to issues such as discrimination also remains to be seen. Employment Tribunals are considered by some to have a better understanding of discrimination issues than perhaps the magistrates or county courts. This is as much criticism of other courts as praise of Employment Tribunals when you look at cases such as Director of Public Prosecutions v Stoke on Trent Magistrates Court (Times Law Report 23/6/03). In that case it took an appeal to the High Court to decide that the chant of "You're just a town full of Pakis", to Oldham supporters at a football match, was of a racialist nature. The District Judge who had originally heard the case apparently thought the phrase was not insulting, that the term "Paki" was akin to "Brit" and had not been used in a derogatory sense.

It's sad that it was necessary for the High Court to explain that the offensive meaning of the chant was that Oldham was inferior because of the Pakistani origin of a number of its citizens.