Seasons Greeting

I have had a FtT decision set aside by a District Tribunal Judge and it’s been sent back for a rehearing.

In the DTJ directions they state to list as hearing allowing 1 hour. No mention of it being a differently constituted Tribunal.

Have the new FtT Regs done away with this requirement.

I’ve checked the Composition of Tribunals order 2008 and Tribunal, Courts & Enforcement Act 2007, but cannot see any reference to them having to have totally different Tribunal members at the re-hearing.

Is anyone able to reassure me that this important protection still exists / operates with in the FtT?

The Tribunal must have regard to rule 2,

Rule 2 provides that the overriding objective is to enable Tribunals to deal with cases “fairly and Justly”.

Therefore, my view is that if you think the new Tribunal consisting of the same members, and may act unfairly or unjustly, then ask for a direction from the regional district judge - explain your concerns, and ask that the case be listed before a differently constituted Tribunal.

Cheers Steve. Have found out that SSA1998 13 (3) still applies which should result in differently constituted Tribunal.

Further to the above point, we represented at a previously postoned Tribunal hearing recently, with directions from the Tribunal Judge of the postponed hearing stating that it should be the same panel that heard the case upon re-listing.

We attended and were faced with an entirely different panel, upon investigation as to why this was the case when it had been directed (as above) we were informed that "as no evidence from the appellant was heard, then the direction was incorrect".

The case involved a profoundly deaf appellant, who had requested a BSL interpreter, but on the day the interpreter did not arrive, due to a failure on behalf of the TS to actually book one, Therefore the Rep requested time with the panel to provide evidence of the booking request and request directions for the re-listed hearing.

It would therefore appear, that an appellant has to go before the panel and provide evidence, before a direction can be requested or given for the same panel. I would assume from your posting that your client did provide evidence on the day, but just thought i would raise this as a point of interest.

The basic principle on adjournment is that normally there will be a direction that the case be heard by a different tribunal if it is a two or three person tribunal and evidence has been taken. This is to avoid the possibility that there will be one or more members of the Tribunal who have heard part of the case before, and one or two who haven't.
It can be very difficult for TS to reassemble an identical tribunal - one or more members may have been sitting at a venue they do not ordinarily sit in to cover for a late cancellation by another member. There is usually no such problem with a judge-alone tribunal especially if the judge is sitting at his/her usual venue.
In my experience judges try to avoid reserving cases to themselves/same tribunal as it can cause inordinate delay, but listing clerks not infrequently bring factually or legally complex cases back before the same judge-alone tribunal, especially where very detailed directions have been given to the parties in respect of evidence, case law, calculations etc.
None of this applies to set asides. These will be because of some sort of error by the Tribunal. If the case set aside was on the papers and the reason for the set aside is that the appellant was unavoidably prevented from coming it might be different, but in my experience a case where a decision has been set aside will and should always go to a differently constituted tribunal.

Late addition....

Purely by chance, I stumbled across CH/2736/2008 (Upper Tribunal). Paras 29 onwards may be of interest.