Hi guys

I am constantly getting frustrated with the tribunals service refusing postponements for clients that have contacted me after lodging their appeal. We request notice and we inform them that we can only represent on certain days but despite this they still list on the day that we cant represent. This is not the case with all my appeals but for example i have a client that contacted us in october last year. we inform,ed the tribunla sservice by fax that we were acting as representatives for the client and that we required a certain amount of notice and specified our availability. We then get contacted by our client about10 days ago informing us that he has recieved his hearing date for the 15.2.10. I explained that we do not represent on mondays and also the fact that the tribunal service have not even told us about the hearing!
So we request a postponement because our client wants us to go with him - they refuse the postponement. We get the refusal today whihc is the 9.2.10 and the appeal is on monday! This is crazy...they have known since october last year and yet have managed to list the appeal on a day we cannot represent.
Does anyone have any caselaw that i can argue if clients attends appeal and then gets refused. because we could ask for setting aside but i need a strong argument about the fact that the client should hav the right to have his representative there.

thanks
salma

In R v Social Security Commissioner ex parte Bibi 2000, at paras 17-18;

“17.The applicant attended the hearing - she herself speaks very little, if any, English - with one of her sons. The Tribunal Chairman refused the application for an adjournment. The reasons given, when eventually the reasons were obtained, read as follows:
“The request for postponement had been made by the claimant’s solicitor. That request was refused by the chairman. The main reason for the request for adjournment was that the claimant’s representative would not be available. The request for postponement having been refused by the chairman, the request was considered by the tribunal as one for adjournment. The tribunal decided to proceed, bearing in mind that an adjournment might become necessary if any difficulty arose. However, the tribunal decided to try to proceed because of the urgency of the matter so far as the claimant herself was concerned and the inevitable delay which would be occasioned not only to the claimant but to other appellants waiting to have their cases listed. Furthermore, the claimant is represented by an employee from a firm of solicitors. A firm undertaking professional representation in this way should arrange matters in such a way that its ability to represent clients does not come to a complete halt whenever a particular member of staff is unavailable.”

18.As to that last observation, there was simply no evidence before the Tribunal which could conceivably have justified it. This appellant had obviously dealt with Mr Norman throughout and he with her, and it is hardly unreasonable that a party to proceedings which are of importance to that party should want the person with whom she has been dealing to represent her. Mr Norman had made it clear to the Tribunal, at a time when the Tribunal could perfectly reasonably have fixed a date outside the time when he had said he was unavailable, that that was the position. It seems to me here that, on any view, the reasons given for the adjournment were insufficient. It is plain that the appellant did not have the sort of hearing to which she was entitled. I appreciate that there is no absolute right to representation, but there is an absolute right to be dealt with fairly. As it seems to me, when one knows the full facts, it is apparent that this appellant was not dealt with fairly in being compelled to conduct her appeal without representation, with the result, as we shall see, that her claim was rejected, largely on the basis that the Tribunal found she had acted dishonestly in the way that she had presented her claims to the Benefits Agency”.