The Ministry of Justice has announced that applications for refunds of Employment Tribunal or Employment Appeal Tribunal fees, will now be processed.
Employment Tribunal fees that were charged between July 2013 and July 2017 will be considered for refunds, after the Supreme Court found, on 26th July 2017, that the Employment Tribunal fee system was unlawful. As the rule of law requires people to have access to the Courts unless Parliament has clearly said otherwise, the introduction of fees was found to have obstructed access to justice. A review of the impact of the fees appeared to support this, as it showed there had been a 70 per cent drop in the number of cases brought in the Employment Tribunal since fees were first introduced.
After the ruling, Justice Minister Dominic Raab stated: "The Supreme Court recognised the important role fees can play, but ruled that we have not struck the right balance in this case.”
Initially, there was a four week trial phase before the scheme was fully rolled out, where around 1,000 people were contacted by the Government and offered the chance to apply for reimbursements. It has been estimated that 100,000 claims could be eligible for refunds now the scheme is fully open.
Applicants can apply for a reimbursement through the gov.uk website but if an employer was ordered by the Tribunal to reimburse a fee paid by the Claimant - and the employer can prove they did so - the employer instead of the Claimant can reclaim the fee. In addition to being refunded their original fee, successful applicants will also be paid 0.5 per cent interest, which will be calculated from the date of the original payment up until the refund date.
It has been reported that since the ruling, the number of Employment Tribunal claims is beginning to increase. However, it is conceivable that fees may be brought into force again in the future, as it was only found that the fee system from July 2013 was unlawful, not that any type of fee system is. This was highlighted by the Lord Chancellor David Lidington during a justice select committee recently, when he verified that the Government were intending to charge in the future
