After complaints were made against the Claimant by a union employee, he was suspended from office pending investigation. He made complaints to the Certification Officer (“CO”) regarding his suspension and also complained about a statement issued by the union President regarding the re-election of the General Secretary. The CO struck out both complaints as having no reasonable prospect of success and refused to accept a further complaint which again related to the Claimant’ suspension. The Claimant appealed, contending that the CO had erred in law and, more generally, that her decisions were vitiated by bias.

The EAT allowed the appeal on two relatively small points. The complaint of bias was dismissed as there was no appearance of the CO being biased. The CO correctly concluded the complaint had no reasonable prospect of success and was properly to be struck out; the appeal in this respect was dismissed. However, the CO had erred in her approach to the code, wrongly concluding it would only be engaged when there were two or more candidates for election. The appeal on this point was allowed and this application remitted to the CO for consideration afresh. Finally, the CO had erred in purporting not to accept the Claimant's further application regarding his suspension. This aspect of the appeal was allowed but, given its apparently vexatious nature, the application would be struck out unless, by written representations received by the EAT within 21 days of the handing down of judgment, the Claimant could show cause why such an order should not be made.