In May 2000, the Lord Chancellor appointed Sir Andrew Leggatt to review the tribunal
system. In his review, Sir Andrew Leggatt commented that:
Where a department of state may provide the
administrative support for a tribunal, pay its fees and expenses, appoint some
of its members, provide its IT support and possibly promote legislation
prescribing the procedure that the tribunal was to follow, the tribunal neither
appeared to be independent, nor was it independent in fact.
Following the Leggatt
Review, in a paper entitled ‘Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress
and Tribunals’, a proposal was set out for a new, unified Tribunal Service.
In 2006, the new
Tribunal Service came into effect. Its mission statement ensures that tribunals
are manifestly independent from those whose decisions are being revised.
Here it should be
noted that general tribunals consist of three members (the chair who is expected
to be legally qualified and two lay representatives). Nominating tribunal
members is set out in statute and thus it is the minister of state who
ultimately has the discretion in deciding the members of the tribunal.
Tribunals effectively
deal with the conflicts between the general public and governmental
departments. Thus, this raises the suspicion that members of tribunals are not
wholly neutral, which may also be argued to the contrary.
For further analysis,
see also Tom Bingham | The Rule of Law (sub-principles 2, 4, and 7)
Is the information
(above), either, deductive legal reasoning, inductive legal reasoning, legal
reasoning by analogy or legal reasoning by way of rhetoric?