Applying for a Postponement of a Scheduled Hearing

The Labour Court normally provides parties with six weeks’ advance notice of the date of their hearing.  Court time is a limited resource and must be managed efficiently and with minimal disruption. Postponements, however, likely lead to the loss of court time, which negatively impacts on other parties awaiting a date for their hearing. 

Therefore, once the hearing date is fixed and notified, a change will only be made where there are exceptional circumstances. 

A party seeking to alter the date, is required to make a postponement application in writing at the earliest possible date.

Where a party wishes to apply for a postponement, they should take the following steps:

• Make direct contact with the opposing party/representative to obtain their written consent to a postponement;
• Send a postponement application in writing to the Labour Court Programming Unit, setting out the exceptional circumstances giving rise to the necessity for a postponement, and attaching relevant supporting material;
• Include with the application, confirmation of the opposing party’s response to the postponement application.

Postponement applications most frequently arise due to the unavailability of a necessary hearing participant. While it is not possible to set out in detail, all the circumstances which may be considered exceptional, a postponement due to unavailability will require substantial reasons and involve unavoidable circumstances. Furthermore, an unavailable party must be a necessary participant in the hearing, and not simply a party is who eager to be present.

Importantly, it should be understood that the applicable circumstances will require verification, as appropriate. 

The unavailability due to illness of a purported necessary participant at a hearing should be supported by appropriate medical certification.  Similarly, unavailability due to pre-arranged travel/holidays (arranged prior to notification of the date of hearing), should be verified with relevant vouching/records/documentation. 

Once the application is received, with all relevant supporting information and documentation, it will be considered by the Chairman of the Court who will determine whether or not the circumstances justify a postponement.

Parties appearing before courts and statutory tribunals such as the Labour Court are entitled to have their appeal, particularly employment rights appeals, heard within a reasonable timeframe.  This places important responsibilities on courts and tribunals to organise the operation of their functions so as to adhere to their obligations to both parties to any proceedings.

The Labour Court operates a fixed listing system for the scheduling of its appeals. This means that both parties receive a specific scheduled date and time for the hearing of their case.  This is in contrast to a ‘callover’ system that tends to operate in ordinary civil courts, where numerous cases are listed for hearing at the same time and parties are obliged to attend in readiness for their hearing. The result is that a variety of factors will determine whether or not a case gets heard on the day that the parties attend for hearing.

The approach of the Labour Court is to create, in so far as is possible, a degree of certainty for both parties as regards the allocation of court time for the hearing of their case from start to finish. This approach is reliant upon parties’ adherence to the processes and procedures operated by the Court, as contained in the Rules of the Court.

The allocation of court time in the context of the many hundreds of appeals received by the Court each year is a crucial aspect to effective court operations. Court time must, therefore, be regarded as limited and valuable.  Postponed hearings delay and prolong proceedings and generally result in loss of court time, time which is likely lost to other parties awaiting a hearing date.

As a result, scheduled hearings will, as set out above, only be postponed in exceptional circumstances.