Decision Making
Decisions and recommendations of the Labour Court are reserved at the conclusion of a hearing and are subsequently conveyed to parties in writing. Once a hearing closes, the division that has heard the matter enters a process of deliberation to determine the outcome.
A division of the Court is comprised of: the Chairman or a deputy chairman; a workers’ member; an employers’ member. The Chairman and those performing the role of deputy chairman are Ministerial appointments, following a competition conducted by the Public Appointments Service. The ordinary members are also appointed by the relevant Minister, having been put forward by the ICTU and Ibec as nominating organisations.
The ordinary members of the Court do not advocate for either side in a dispute. Instead, they must act independently as part of a division of the Court, bringing the perspective of their experience and expertise to the conduct of their statutory functions.
Labour Court divisions are assigned to the business of the Court exclusively by the Chairman. This is done in accordance with the Chairman’s statutory functions. It is not possible for a party or a representative to request that a particular Court member or division be assigned to hear a case.
Designating a division to hear a case is a matter of important statutory significance. Having been assigned by the Chairman to a particular matter, each division so assigned assumes all the statutory powers of the Court, with the chairman of the division having all the powers of the Chairman of the Court in respect of that particular matter.
Once a division is assigned to a matter, no other member of the Court, whether the Chairman, a deputy chairman or ordinary member, can have any involvement in determining the matter.
As soon as is practicable following a hearing, the division will meet to deliberate on the matter. The division are the sole participants in the meeting and neither the Court Secretary nor any other person attends or participates in the deliberation meeting, which is essentially a private meeting. The meeting is chaired by the chairman of the division but is conducted in an informal manner with the division operating in a collegiate way to seek to reach a consensus.
Usually, deliberation meetings take place directly following the hearing, but that can of course depend on the timetable of other assigned hearings which the division must attend to. Decisions may be arrived at in a single meeting or may be adjourned and take several meetings.
The process by which decisions are arrived at is prescribed by statute at Section 20(3) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946. This provides that where a division is unable to reach unanimous agreement on what the decision should be, then the decision is reached in accordance with the following provisions:
· If the majority of the ordinary members agree on what the decision should be, then the matter is decided accordingly;
· If the majority of the ordinary members do not agree but the majority of the division agree, then the matter is decided accordingly;
· Otherwise, the matter is decided in accordance with the opinion of the chairman of the division.
The manner in which a decision is reached is neither recorded nor made known. Nor are the existence of any assenting or dissenting opinions disclosed. A decision of a division, howsoever arrived at, is the decision of the Labour Court and is the only decision in that matter.
Once a decision is made, the chairman of the division is responsible for compiling the written decision for issue to the parties.
Decisions of the Court are often attributed to, and cited by reference to, the chairman of the particular division that made the decision. While written decisions reflect a digital signature of the chairman of the division at the end of the document, this represents a signature on behalf of the Labour Court, i.e the division, and does not alter the joint/collaborative basis of the decision.
