The State (Irish Pharmaceutical Union) v Employment Appeals Tribunal

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1987
• Date: 01 January 1987
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

The State (Irish Pharmaceutical Union)

and

Employment Appeals Tribunal

Tribunal - Evidence - Determination of remedy by tribunal not argued by parties to hearing - Whether in breach of natural justice - Whether in breach of fair procedures.

Following an unfair dismissal hearing, the respondent Tribunal found that the employee had been unfairly dismissed and that the most appropriate remedy, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, was that the employee be re-engaged. The entire of the hearings had been confined to the circumstances of the dismissal and the financial loss arising therefrom. Neither employee nor employer, both of whom had been represented throughout the hearings by solicitor and counsel, had raised any issue as to a claim for re-instatement or re-engagement. The employer applied for and obtained a conditional order of certiorari to quash the order of the Tribunal on the grounds that, in determining that the employee should be re-engaged, the Tribunal had acted contrary to the principles of natural and constitutional justice and contrary to fair procedures, in that it failed to give the employer notice of its intention to consider this remedy and failed to give the employer any opportunity of being heard in relation to the appropriateness or feasibility of such a remedy. The High Court granted an absolute order of certiorari. The respondent appealed. Held by the Supreme Court (Finlay C.J., Henchy, Walsh, Hederman and McCarthy JJ.) in varying the order of the High Court, 1, whether it be identified as a principle of natural justice derived from the common law and known as audi alteram partem or, preferably, as the right to fair procedures...