Withdrawing an Appeal

Yes it does.

Bear in mind that a clmt has the right to be present for ALL of the hearing; a Judge doesn’t have the right to positively exclude a clmt in this context.  Unless I had a client that was prone to causing undue disruption, I can’t conceive any situation where I would be comfortable discussing the appeal in the absence of the client.

Martin, can you point to something to verify that.  I would have thought that that would be more akin to an interlocutory hearing with the main proceedings not starting until the appellant’s backside hits the chair, so to speak.

Tend to go with Paul on this.  I don’t see how the hearing can start until the appellant is present in the Tribunal room.

Not sure if this case helps but where the Tribunal failed to record the proceedings in the pre-hearing it was found to be at error of the law. C35/10-11(DLA)

can’t get the link to work but it comes up if you google search it…

Hopefully C35/10-11(DLA) decision attached to this post.

The key sentence it seems to me, at para 9, is:

“In light of the unusual course of events which occurred immediately before the tribunal hearing, the inevitable result is a finding that the tribunal erred in law in holding the meeting which was inextricably connected to the proceedings but which was not part of the formal appeal tribunal proceedings”.