P v Commissioner Of Police Of The Metropolis (Jurisdictional Points)

Judicial proceedings immunity protects a police misconduct board from a discrimination or harassment claim founded on the way in which it conducted proceedings or reached its decision. The immunity protects the integrity of the judicial process and is not displaced merely because the alleged wrong is disability discrimination.

A distinction remains between impugning the board’s conduct and advancing a statutory claim which permits an Employment Tribunal to decide whether a dismissal was unlawful. Where the pleaded case alleges that the board’s decision-making process was itself discriminatory, it attacks the integrity of the panel and is barred.

A serving police officer with post-traumatic stress disorder admitted almost all allegations of misconduct before a Police Misconduct Board. The Board dismissed her without notice. Her unfair-dismissal claim was struck out because police officers ordinarily have no such right, apart from the protected-disclosure statutory exception.

She instead alleged disability discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments and harassment under the Equality Act 2010. The Employment Tribunal struck out the claim on judicial-immunity grounds. On appeal, the issue was whether allegations arising from the Board’s conduct, continuation of proceedings and decision to dismiss could proceed notwithstanding Heath and Lake.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Judge correctly struck out the claim insofar as it concerned the acts and omissions of the Police Misconduct Board.

2. The pleaded allegations did not merely contend that the dismissal decision was legally wrong. They alleged that the Board had discriminated against the claimant, failed to make adjustments, harassed her and should not have continued the proceedings or dismissed her. Those allegations necessarily impugned the Board’s conduct while exercising its judicial functions.

3. Under Heath v Commisioner of Police of the Metropolis [2005] ICR 329, judicial proceedings immunity applies to the conduct of a police disciplinary tribunal. It protects the process and its participants from collateral claims, including discrimination claims founded on acts or omissions within their functions. Singh v Reading Borough Council and Anr [2013] EWCA Civ 909 did not cast doubt on that core protection: it concerned an antecedent act outside the tribunal proceedings.

4. The court regarded the claim as an attack on the integrity of the panel, not a statutory challenge to the legal correctness of dismissal. It therefore fell within the immunity.

5. Although unnecessary to the result, the court considered that Lake v British Transport Police [2007] ICR 1293 was not confined to statutory interpretation. It permits a tribunal, where statute confers jurisdiction, to determine whether a dismissal was unlawful without questioning the board’s process. That distinction could not assist a claim alleging that the process and reasons of the Board were discriminatory.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Appeal dismissed; the Employment Tribunal’s strike-out of the claim based on the Police Misconduct Board’s conduct was upheld.
• Employment Tribunal, London Central: Employment Judge Etherington struck out the disability-discrimination claim for judicial proceedings immunity in reasons promulgated on 8 July 2013. An earlier unfair-dismissal claim had also been struck out by REJ Potter.