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Comment :
Northern Ireland administrative justice reform: government timetable awaited
(July 2007)
Les Allamby, Director of the Northern Ireland Law Centre, member of the Legal Services Commission (NI) and a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee talks about administrative justice reform in Northern Ireland.
When the (then) Secretary of State Peter Hain announced in March 2006 that Northern Ireland would introduce the new unified tribunal arrangements under the Northern Ireland Court Service it caught most people by surprise. Even some key players in the administration of existing tribunals only learnt about the decision very shortly before it went public.
Sixteen months on little progress has been made towards the creation of a unified tribunal service. Parking Adjudication and Valuation tribunals have been set up under the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Court Service and an inter-departmental working group has been created to carry change forward. However, as a result of legislative and other progress in Britain the anomalies between how tribunals operate and are administered in Northern Ireland and Great Britain is set to widen.
Northern Ireland has its own tribunal system largely mirroring the pre-reform arrangements in Britain. In addition, long-standing and significant differences apply. For example, the Council of Tribunals remit does not extend to Northern Ireland save for tribunals which have a UK wide remit. In addition, there is also no equivalent of the Civil Justice Council despite the Civil Justice Review recommending the creation of an equivalent body in 2000. The current position is that a civil justice committee is likely to be announced in the near future. There is also no employment appeal tribunal, instead appeals from Industrial and Fair Employment tribunals in Northern Ireland must go direct to the Court of Appeal.
These differences have significant ramifications for appellants and the administration of justice. There has been no research into the operation of tribunals in Northern Ireland. Moreover, virtually no tribunals issue annual reports, business plans or other documents formally recording their work or how it will be carried forward in the future. Accessing information and statistics on the work of tribunals as a whole is difficult. Within employment law, very few precedents emerge save in the area of discrimination law where the Equality Commission can financially support appellants in public interest cases. In other areas of employment law, applicants who wish to appeal a tribunal decision often find work, lose legal aid and can no longer afford to pursue an appeal. As a result, very few non-discrimination employment cases ever reach the Court of Appeal.
Devolution of justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly is due to happen in May 2008 and the question whether tribunal reform in Northern Ireland will require new legislation and if so, whether the legislation will be undertaken from the Northern Ireland Assembly or Westminster has yet to be publicly determined.
There is considerable frustration at the slow pace of reform within the voluntary advice sector and among some who are involved in delivering the new arrangements once they are in place.
At present we are faced with the unsatisfactory prospect of reformed tribunal arrangements for UK wide tribunals in immigration, tax and VAT matters operating in Northern Ireland while continuing with the pre-reform arrangements now considered inappropriate for England and Wales.
The time is long overdue for government to announce a reform timetable for Northern Ireland alongside beginning to put some of the building blocks in place that do not require legislative reform.
Moreover, some oversight arrangements could be put in place in advance in shadow form to close one of the yawning gaps between the approach to tribunals between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
For further information or questions, contact Les Allamby.