We have caught two employees slacking at work. Can we run the disciplinary hearings together as one and must we give them the same penalties, assuming both are found guilty?

Posted in : First Tuesday Q&A NI on 1 November 2016
Chris Fullerton
Arthur Cox
Issues covered:

If an employer wants to carry out a joint disciplinary hearing, certain safeguards would need to be met to ensure neither employee is prejudiced by this. For example, there could be a risk of acting unfairly if the employer hears and decides employee A’s case before hearing all the evidence in employee B’s case, because the findings for employee A could lead the employer to pre-judge the outcome of employee B’s case. It may therefore be more conducive to fairness for the panel to hear both cases before making a decision on either of them. Whether it does this at one combined hearing or two separate hearings is another matter.

 

In addition, a joint hearing could result in unfairness

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Back to Q&A's This article is correct at 01/11/2016
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Chris Fullerton
Arthur Cox

The main content of this article was provided by Chris Fullerton. Contact telephone number is 028 9023 0007 or email Chris.Fullerton@arthurcox.com

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