Racal Services (Communications) Ltd v. Flockhart

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS At the Tribunal On 18 January 2002 Before

RACAL SERVICES (COMMUNICATIONS) LTD (FORMERLY RACAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS LTD) APPELLANT MISS A L FLOCKHART RESPONDENT

The Tribunal then went on to consider a number of significant factors which persuaded it that the balance it had described as very fine resulted in a finding in favour of the employee to the effect that the sanction of dismissal was, in these circumstances, too draconian, and that the blanket application of the drugs policy was, in this particular case, however fair it might be in general, unfair.

It appears to us, probably, to have been conducting the very exercise which Mummery�LJ indicated that an Employment Tribunal must not do. It was approaching the question of reasonableness and fairness from the standpoint of its own decision rather than by asking whether the decisions made by the employer fell within the scope of that which a reasonable employer might do. Accordingly, we think that there is, in the light of the clarification of the law which Foley -v- The Post Office effects, no answer to the basis of this appeal.