Case Number 1313142.10

Employment Tribunals

Between
Claimant                                                       Respondent
Mr D Maistry AND British Broadcasting Corporation

APPLICATION FOR A REVIEW

In exercise of the powers conferred upon me by Rule 35(3) of Schedule 1 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2004 (the Rules), I refuse the application for a review by the claimant because the review application is made over one year out of time and because I consider there are no grounds for the judgment to be reviewed under Rule 34(3) and/or that there is no reasonable prospect of the judgment being varied or revoked.

REASONS

1. Judgment on this case was promulgated on 3 April 2012. By way of letter dated 3 July 2013 the claimant applies for a review of that judgment.

2. Rules 34 and 35 of the Employment Tribunals Rules of Procedure provid(in so far as is relevant) as follows:

34(1) Parties may apply to have certain judgments and decisions made by a
tribunal or an Employment Judge reviewed under Rules 34-36. Those
judgments and decisions are –
(b) a judgment (other than a default judgment but including an
order for costs, expenses, preparation time or wasted costs)

34(3) Subject to paragraph (4), decisions may be reviewed on the following
grounds only-

(d) new evidence has become available since the conclusion of
the hearing to which the decision relates, provided that its
existence could not have been reasonably known of or
foreseen at the time.

34(1) An application under rule 34 to have a decision reviewed must be made
to the Employment Tribunal Office within 14 days of the date on which
the decision was sent to the parties. The 14 day time limit may be
extended by an Employment Judge if he considers it just and equitable
to do so.

35(3) The application to have a judgment reviewed shall be considered
without the need to hold a hearing) by the Employment Judge of the
Tribunal which made the decision…and that person shall refuse the
application if he considers there are no grounds for the decision to
be reviewed under Rule 34(3) or there is no reasonable prospect of
the decision being varied or revoked.

3. The claimant set out his contended grounds for review in detail in his letter. He seeks to rely on a 61 page report published by the respondent in May 2013. He submits that this report amounts to new evidence relevant to the issues in his case.

4. I refuse the application for a review. I accept that the existence of this report which could not have been reasonably have been known of or foreseen at the time of the Hearing but I do not find it is in the interests of justice for a review to be conducted in circumstances where new evidence is produced over one year after the judgment in the case was promulgated.

5. In any event the report adduced as new evidence has no obvious relevance to the claimant’s tribunal case. We are told on page 6 that the scope of the report is to consider the extent to which the “the BBC Value of Respect is upheld at the BBC”.

6. The claimant has sort(sic) to challenge on a number of occasions the finding of the tribunal that the respondent’s witnesses had no knowledge of his protected philosophical belief. Under cover of this review application he seeks, once again, to re-open this finding of fact. For the avoidance of doubt E J Hughes at the Pre-hearing Review found that the claimant did have a protected philosophical belief –namely a belief in the higher purpose of public service broadcasting and that when he referred to “BBC Values” this is what he meant. E J Harding’s tribunal, whilst acknowledging the claimant’s protected philosophical belief, found as a fact that the respondent’s witnesses understood the term to mean something different – namely the term referred to the BBC’s mission statement, known as the BBC Values, which emphasized the importance of certain matters such as Respect and Trust. The BBC report has no relevance to this finding. In fact if anything it could be said that it supports the respondent’s case, because it confirms that one of the BBC Values is Respect, as was described by the respondent’s witnesses, and as was found as a fact to be the case.

7. I therefore conclude after preliminary consideration that I shall refuse the claimant’s application for a review of the judgment.