TRIBUNALS

Tribunals

Tribunals

Introduction

The Tribunal is a place agreed to discuss and decide an issue, matter or an event. It is part of the legal and regulatory system, and is usually established by the Ministry of Justice, and the results are binding. Tribunals may be dissolved as they have been designated for many different reasons as functions of circumstances and reasons for their openings and their locations.

Several types of Tribunals exist to serve for many purposes. The Tribunals are defined in many ways, most commonly the term is said Tribunal. A tribunal is an entity with the authority to rule on an issue that was brought to its attention. A tribunal may be a court in the sense that the protagonists present their arguments before a judge or jury trial (Tibor, 2006, 12). The tribunals are generally designated for specific questions domiciled property under their jurisdiction or for a special kind of jurisdiction. As in all the courts in a legal system, the court decision is final and respected by the parties in conflict. Depending on circumstances, a tribunal may be open or closed. A tribunal may not work outside the legal system, but it works according to its own set of procedures and guidelines.

“The word 'tribunal' has no precise meaning in English law and even the word 'court' is difficult to define”.' According to Yves, (2008, 228), a tribunal is an entity “with judicial or quasi-judicial functions set up by statute and existing outside the usual judicial hierarchy”. However, this description fails to take account of consensual or “domestic” tribunals, and in legal parlance “tribunal” is often used as a generic term for courts as well as other legal decision-makers. It is, in fact, a “basket word”3 denoting many different institutions. For present purposes “tribunal” will mean an authority created by statute4 or by agreement5 performing judicial functions outside the regular system of courts, for example, disciplinary authorities within government departments, police services, professional associations, and sporting organisations. Other tribunals deal with matters more akin to civil than to penal proceedings, such as town planning, tax appeals, mining concessions, licence applications, social security benefits and fair rents. All statutory tribunals are subject to judicial review, to ensure that they do not exceed their powers, and that the powers they do possess are used fairly and reasonably. Actions such as the exclusion of students from public universities are on the borderline. The constitutional Act contained a general power of governance, but said nothing about “academic misconduct” in particular, or how it should be treated, so it did not follow that any and every decision by officers of the university was open to judicial review (Schreuer, 2001, 15).

Modern legislation has greatly increased the number and variety of tribunals. But while the exponential growth of administrative law is relatively recent, judicial supervision of tribunals was well established by the 18th century.” It was also accepted that private organisations might set up their own systems of adjudication, provided that no attempt was made to ...