Preliminary points within a hearing

In general, hearings will deal with all of the issues they have to decide in a block. That is to say, having identified six issues, the tribunal will hear evidence and submissions relating to all of them – then give its judgment. It is fairly unusual for a tribunal to deal with a single issue separately, without separating it out into a separate hearing in the form of a pre-hearing review.

Having said this, the tribunal has a great deal of discretion in regulating its own proceedings, and there are issues that can be usefully separated out. Suitable issues will be those that are determinative of the case, ie. those that once decided may make the other issues irrelevant, and those where the relevant evidence is quite separate to the rest of the evidence. In most cases an issue will have to meet both criteria before the tribunal will depart from standard practice.

In such cases, the tribunal will effectively hold a mini-hearing, within the main hearing. Evidence relating to the single issue will be called, submissions given and the tribunal will give its judgment. Once this is done, the tribunal will, if necessary, continue to the other issues.