Judicial Corruption at the Court of Appeal – An Open Letter to Lord Thomas, Lord Dyson, Lady Hale a
“That corruption has nothing to do with money. His judgment is flawed. Justice is tarnished…At the same time, no individual, or group of individuals, nor even any judge, however high his office, has any dispensing power – that is, the power to set aside or disregard the law.” - The Lord Judge.
AB is of Black African ethnic minority racial group in Great Britain. In the purported redundancy pool, AB was the only Black African and being made redundant implies contravention of the Equality Impact Assessment policy of the employer that the exercise must have neutral effect on any existing racial groups.
Within the statutory seven days of AB being made redundant he brought Employment Tribunal (“ET”) claims against his employer and line managers for unlawful racial discrimination and automatic unfair dismissal. The basis of the automatic unfair dismissal claim arose from AB making of the protected disclosure (whistleblowing).
Despite AB Interim Relief application was accepted by the ET seven days after the application was made, his Interim Relief application was never determined by the ET contrary to section 128 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”).
His substantive claims of racial discrimination and unfair dismissal were struck out by the ET after AB requested recusal of the ET chaired by EJ Pearl on the basis of appearance of bias and serious violations of Article 6 convention rights.
AB unsuccessful applications at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) were granted on the papers by Lord Justice Rimer of the Court of Appeal (“CA”) and adjourned the granted permission to appeal (“PTA”) applications to be heard at an Oral Hearing on 13 March 2013 with a time estimate of 2 hours excluding time for judgment. That hearing was vacated by Aikens LJ on 12 March 2013 and to be relisted by 10 April 2013 before Aikens and Beatson LJJ.
Underhill LJ well known, right from his days as a practising barrister at Fountain Court Chambers, to be closed associates to EJ Pearl and HHJ Peter Clark who both chaired the ET and EAT full hearing (allowed to be heard) respectively, was appointed a Lord Justice on 10 April 2013. The PTA hearing meant to be heard by 10 April 2013 was instead relisted on 3 May 2013.
Newly appointed Lord Justice Underhill (who gave directive in August 2011 that AB's Interim Application be summarily rejected whilst he was the EAT President) replaced Beatson LJ in AB’s PTA at the CA and delegated his EAT judicial duty scheduled same time in Dooley v Union of Construction Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) [2013] UKEAT 0346_12_0305 to HHJ Peter Clark who chaired the EAT decision in AB’s case that was to be reviewed by the CA.
AB was not allowed to speak to the Court at the hearing of the applications whose orders were granted by Lord Justice Rimer whilst Underhill J, as he then was, was still a judge of the EAT collegially system, contrary to the "enforcing compliance with rules, practice directions and orders" provision of CPR 1.1(2)(f) and also contrary to AB's entitled statutory right of a renewed oral hearing since Lord Justice Rimer did not state that the applications were without merit.
The procedural judge of the CA, Deputy Master Meacher, thwarted AB detailed petition to the Lord Chief Justice and the Head of Civil Justice, in England and Wales, for their intervention to cure this serious injustice which included the fact that Underhill LJ was constituted as an appeal judge over his own decision contrary to Section 56(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Despite the legal principle that a man shall not be a judge in his own cause, Ms Meacher made the following shocking statement:
“[n]either the Lord Chief Justice nor the MR can respond to submissions from litigants in individual cases...It is not possible to apply to set aside a final decision of this Court (see Roult v North West Strategic Health Authority [2009] EWCA Civ 444).”
The illegality that led to the judgment delivered by Underhill LJ cannot be considered a final decision according to the quoted words above of the Lord Judge that no judge however high his office, has any dispensing powers to set aside or disregard the law.