Are Tribunals Independent?

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.


Is the information (above), either, deductive legal reasoning, inductive legal reasoning, legal reasoning by analogy or legal reasoning by way of rhetoric?