Gibraltar Corruption

Is there still Rule of Law in Gibraltar? Is there corruption in the local police?

Are employees' Human Rights protected? Is there a mafia in Gibraltar?

How corrupt are the Courts in Gibraltar? Is Entain a bad employer?

What are Judge Yeats' motivations to keep involving himself?

Should Judge Yeats from the Supreme Court recuse himself from every court case involving me? I believe so as there are indications of bias towards my ex-employer Entain and an apparent tendency to gloss over mistakes from his fellow Judges.

On 13 March 2025 I filed my application for Judge Yeats to recuse himself. I did not receive a reply although my arguments for his recusal were very to the point and convincing. As a result of this lack of reply, on 24 March 2025 I filed a crime report with the (corrupt?) Royal Gibraltar Police. In this crime report, I added evidence of my suspicions of corruption in the courts re my court case against Entain, mentioning that Judge Yeats was possibly involved. In my crime report to the RGP, I requested that Mr Cathal Yeats, Assistant Police Commissioner, should not be involved with the investigation as his brother, Judge Liam Yeats from the Supreme Court, is named in it as potentially trying to cover up wrongdoings in the Employment Tribunal. The RGP investigation never started, what proves to me that the police and judiciary are covering up potential crimes as and when required by their political masters.

UPDATE 25 March 2025: Judge Yeats decided not to recuse himself but does at present not want to give the reasons why. This is obviously a strange attitude, raising even more suspicions. How can I appeal Judge Yeats' decision when I am not told what to appeal??? It is noteworthy that Judge Yeats' reply came the day after I filed my crime report for alleged corruption in which he is named as a possible suspect. Could it be that someone in the RGP gave Judge Yeats a phone call?

Judge Yeats from the Supreme Court presided over both my Employment Tribunal appeals. As this case is still going on after 7 years, I ran out of savings and I can no longer pay my rent, so my landlord started eviction proceedings to make me homeless. If I were to become homeless, this would make it impossible for me to continue my employment court case against Entain. I have, for a long time, suspicions that my employment court case has been manipulated. It would be in the interest of those manipulators to stop this court case against Entain at all cost to hide their wrongdoings. In how far Entain's management is pushing for this, is unknown to me.

There is more to the dispute with my landlord as he has overcharged me rent for 11 years, which I believe is a fraud. This hearing is planned for late April 2025 and is presided by Judge Yeats again. As I have my doubts about the partisan way some aspects of my employment case were dealt with by Judge Yeats in the past, I filed an application inviting him to recuse himself for repeatedly showing bias in my case against Entain.

My application for Judge Yeats' recusal was accompanied by a detailed witness statement elaborating about the many reasons I saw for my request. The legal background for the recusal of a Judge is: "a test determining whether a fair-minded and informed observer would conclude there is a real possibility of bias, requiring the Judge to recuse themselves if such a possibility exists. Judge Yeats could easily have considered my arguments for his recusal at his desk and then communicate his decision. There is no need or requirement for my landlord to have a say in this matter. I was therefore astonished to receive a request to attend a hearing about the recusal on 26 March 2025. The court was informed repeatedly, over several months, that at this date I would not be present in Gibraltar so it looks pretty much like this hearing was organised in the knowledge that I would not be able to attend. I pointed this out to the Registrar of the Court but did not get an immediate reply.

In my witness statement added to the recusal application for Judge Yeats, I bring up the following arguments:

- Judge Yeats presided over two appeals from my Employment Tribunal.

- Tribunal Chairman Joseph Nuñez produced two judgments for the GVC/Entain case, both were completely wrong. The first one was overturned in appeal by Judge Yeats. The second judgment, again heard by Judge Yeats, was not overturned in appeal because there was no transcript of the Tribunal's final hearing of liability.

- Mr Joseph Nuñez, as an occasional Tribunal Chairman, has written maybe five judgments in his whole legal career of forty years. An example of his lack of experience is that he does not number the paragraphs in the handful of judgments he produced. Mr Nuñez's behaviour throughout the procedures has been disrespectful towards me and unacceptable for someone in the position of a Judge. He does no understand the Bullying At Work Act, as proven in his judgment for the Dr Cassaglia v GHA case, which was overturned in appeal. As a litigant in person without previous legal experience, I had to correct Mr Nuñez repeatedly for misinterpreting the law, which made him angry each time. Everyone who has looked into my employment case sees a clear win, but still Mr Nuñez's judgment went completely against me, based on a minor selection of evidence while completely ignoring the abundance of evidence in favour of my employment claims. This botched and blundering approach has favoured GVC/Entain.

- Chairman Nuñez did refer to facts in his first judgment, but no witnesses were cross-examined during the hearing. In other words, Mr Nuñez did not consider all the evidence and he made a serious procedural mistake here, to my detriment. Judge Yeats referred to the Chairman's analysis of facts in his first appeal judgment, but he does not refer to the lack of witness cross-examination. The lack of a transcript of witness cross-examination was the principal reason why my second appeal failed. So why did Judge Yeats not bring this important point up in the first appeal? This creates the impression that Judge Yeats tried to minimise Mr Nuñez's blunders and ensuing embarrassment while Mr Nuñez acted as a fellow Judge.

- In Judge Yeats' first appeal judgment Bart Van Thienen v Entain Operations Ltd (GVC Services Ltd) from 4 November 2020 2020/CIVAP/001, there are several referrals to findings of fact:
18. It seems to me that in this appeal it is not a question of reviewing the Tribunal’s decision in the way envisaged by the Chief Justice because the Tribunal did not carry out a fact finding exercise. It is for this court to consider the grounds of appeal and itself determine whether these show that the appellant’s case, taken at its highest, is one which could succeed at trial. If I consider that they do, then the Tribunal erred in its approach as a matter of law and the appeal should be allowed.
20. As has already been observed the Chairman did not come to a firm conclusion on the matter and decided that even if section 65B(1)(d) included a danger to mental health, the exception was not made out on the facts of the case. Nevertheless, this having been raised by the appellant, it was the respondent’s submission that mental health is not caught by the provision and I must therefore address the point in this appeal. If section 65B(1)(d) does not extend to dangers to mental health then the appeal fails without more.
29. The second and third grounds of appeal both relate to factual conclusions that the Tribunal reached having considered the documentation and heard submissions from the parties at the preliminary hearing. I will first set out what the Tribunal found.
34. The Chairman then went on to say that in order to answer these questions he considered the documentation that was before him and in particular the correspondence exchanged between the parties between the 25 April 2018 and the 8 May 2018.
42. As I have already stated, the Chairman considered the correspondence exchanged between the 25 April and the 8 May 2018 in order to determine the question.
54. ... That prospect having been raised, the Tribunal should also have considered the previous correspondence and statements by the appellant to the respondent. If read with that context in mind then it can quite properly be taken as being a notification by the appellant that he was refusing to return to work because of circumstances of danger to his mental health which were serious and imminent. The email of the 1 May 2018 cannot be seen in a vacuum.
What Judge Yeats concludes here is that Chairman Nuñez does not know how to properly analyse ALL evidence and that he fails to put the evidence in its right context. This shows that Mr Nuñez is incompetent to be a Judge. It could as well be a strong indication that Mr Nuñez was biased towards my ex-employer. Again, the wording used by Judge Yeats could be interpreted as attempting to soften the blow for Mr Nuñez, who had clearly made very serious mistakes, unworthy of someone in the position of a Judge.

- In the same judgment , Judge Yeats wrote:
23. Section 65B(1)(d), and its English equivalent, derive from Council Directive of the 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work (89/391/EC) (“the Directive”).
A simple Google search would have brought up this Directive and would have brought up that mental health is covered by health and safety legislation since 1989. Chairman Nuñez did not do his homework, he did not know about this Directive, he did not even use Google to search for case law and precedents to find out. Instead he based his decisions on his own assumptions, which were completely wrong. Again, this makes Mr Nuñez incompetent to play Judge in court cases which could be life-changing for victims of unscrupulous employers. Judge Yeats elaborated in his judgment quite a bit about this point and drew the conclusion that mental health was covered by health and safety. There was no need of this elaboration and it looks like a way to prove that Mr Nuñez was wrong, but massaging it in such a way that Mr Nuñez did not look like a complete idiot. This first appeal should have been completely unnecessary and led to a perfectly preventable delay of a year and a half, which benefitted GVC/Entain and served to make me run out of my savings.

- What is proven here is that Mr Nuñez acted like a botcher and a blunderer, raising very serious questions about his abilities and qualities to act as a Judge. It is therefore utterly incomprehensible that Judge Yeats ended his judgment with: 61. ... The Chairman is vastly experienced and undoubtedly able to take the appellant’s claims forward to a conclusion notwithstanding his preliminary findings. How can this statement be in the interests of justice? This remarkable praise by Judge Yeats shows bias towards Mr Nuñez, a Judge colleague of Judge Yeats on this occasion. My ensuing efforts to have Mr Nuñez recuse himself failed because of this statement. This was favourable for my ex-employer who could now continue with a Tribunal Chairman who was hostile towards my person and my claims.
- During my second appeal, again presided by Judge Yeats, and after Chairman Nuñez had dismissed all my claims, I handed in a very detailed skeleton argument of 133 pages. From this document, it must have been crystal clear that something was very wrong with Mr Nuñez's judgment, probably the biggest miscarriage of Justice in Gibraltar's history. Indeed, Mr Nuñez's judgment went completely against the evidence on very many occasions.

- In the second appeal judgment Bart Van Thienen v Entain Operations Ltd (formerly GVC Services Ltd) from 30 March 2023 2022/CIVAP/002, Judge Yeats mentioned that he was aware about the content of my skeleton argument:
13. The appellant’s grounds of appeal are in effect set out in his Notice of Appeal. (The document entitled ‘Memorandum of Appeal’ simply refers to legislation and authorities.) The Notice of Appeal is 21 pages long and is in narrative form. The appellant then produced a 133-page skeleton argument for the hearing which is also in narrative form. In the skeleton, he makes further complaints which are not set out in the Notice of Appeal. The complaints are so numerous that it is not feasible to list or summarise these in any meaningful way.
14. A large number of the complaints (grounds of appeal) made in the Notice of Appeal, relate to findings or evaluation of the facts by the Chairman. Similarly, in his skeleton argument, the appellant attempts a near line by line analysis and critique of the Chairman’s judgment. As already explained, I am unable to consider challenges to findings or evaluation of the facts as I do not have all of the evidence considered by the Chairman. Therefore, all complaints/grounds which relate to findings or evaluation of the facts are dismissed. In this judgment, I will only focus on the complaints which are not exclusively matters relating to findings or evaluation of facts.
27. Clearly, these are very serious allegations to make. Other than for the appellant’s bare assertions, there is no evidence of any improper action by the Chairman. As to whether the duration of the cross-examination was inappropriate and caused unfairness, this cannot be assessed without a transcript.
Judge Yeats concluded, correctly, that I had numerous complaints, a large number of complaints, and that I made a near line by line analysis and critique of Chairman Nuñez's 98 page judgment. Combined with Mr Nuñez's Dr Cassaglia v GHA judgment, this was the third time that Judge Yeats could see the rubbish which Mr Nuñez produces in his judgments. That I pointed out such a very high number of “mistakes” makes it hard to believe this was only incompetence and it raises the question if there was not a degree of intentionality in Mr Nuñez's “mistakes”. Judge Yeats should have sent my case back to the Tribunal for a retrial. Instead Judge Yeats, again, showed bias towards Mr Nuñez and even defends him, which again benefits my ex-employer. Some argue that this refusal for a retrial could be a cover-up to help Mr Nuñez against another major embarrassment.

-Judge Yeats, in the same judgment, even praises Mr Nuñez for his “detailed work”.
6. The appellant’s claims were heard by Tribunal chairman, Mr Joseph Nuñez (“the Chairman”). For the reasons set out in a detailed 98-page judgment, the Chairman dismissed all of the appellant’s claims.
19. The Chairman set out a detailed chronology in his judgment. Although there have clearly been delays, these are most certainly not all attributable to the respondent’s conduct.

- In the same judgment Judge Yeats deals with my attempts for Mr Nuñez's recusal after I won the first appeal:
16. The Chairman’s refusal to recuse himself from hearing the claims. The appellant asserts that he repeatedly asked the Chairman to recuse himself but the Chairman refused to do so. The appellant says that he believed the Chairman was not being impartial and was biased against him.
17. Other than the appellant’s bare assertions, there is no evidence of any impartiality or bias being exhibited by the Chairman. (The fact that, for example, the Chairman chose to hold a hearing on a preliminary issue on jurisdiction despite the appellant’s protestations is not evidence of partiality or bias. It is the task of the judge to take case management decisions.) In any event, as Mr Martinez pointed out, the appellant withdrew his application for the Chairman’s recusal prior to the final hearing.
Judge Yeats goes out of his way here to defend Mr Nuñez although he must by now have known about Mr Nuñez's botched and blundering approach to employment claims. This defence is wrong though. Chairpersons, acting as Judges, indeed have the task to make case management decisions, but on condition that they follow the requirements as laid out in the Overriding Objective: employment proceedings need to be quick, cheap and easy. Mr Nuñez's case management decision to hold a preliminary hearing about jurisdiction for the unfair dismissal claim, caused an unnecessary delay of a year and a half, complicated the proceedings tremendously and must have cost my ex-employer significantly as they lost the appeal. This again seems to indicate a certain level of bias by Judge Yeats, by trying to unreasonably defend Mr Nuñez, and against the interests of justice regarding my claims, which benefitted GVC/Entain.

- Still in this same second appeal judgment, Judge Yeats stated:
29. The appellant also complains that the respondent disclosed a number of important documents as the hearing was coming to an end. Mr Martinez accepted that a number of documents were first disclosed during the last days of the hearing. However, of these, only sixteen pages had not previously been provided (this included three pages of emails which had been sent to the appellant in the course of his employment). Mr Martinez submitted that there had been sufficient time to have any witness recalled if the appellant had considered it to be necessary.
30. Whilst it is clearly unfortunate that documents were provided at a very late stage, the fact is that they were available before the hearing came to an end and could have been referred to if the appellant considered it to be appropriate. If he wanted to put any matter contained in those documents to any particular witness, he could have applied to have the witness recalled. He did not do so.
Hiding evidence is an abuse of process and/or a failure to comply with the law. It clearly is contempt of the court as complete disclosure was requested by the first Chairman, Kenneth Navas. GVC/Entain was perverting the course of Justice by hiding important and easily retrievable evidence. Judge Yeats here not only defends Mr Nuñez's case management blunder but goes even further and defends GVC/Entain's wrongdoings, showing bias. Three witnesses had the hidden evidence, none of them disclosed it. This shows that the hiding was intentional and that they knew that it was important evidence. The evidence that popped up, proved that the manager who investigated my bullying grievance followed an unfair procedure to, wrongly, conclude that I was never bullied. He therefore proposed some minimal changes on the work-floor which did not sort out the bullying problem at all. This resulted in my refusal to return to a dangerous place of work. The extreme importance of this evidence, can only indicate that it was hidden on purpose to sabotage my bullying and unfair dismissal claims. Again, Judge Yeats' very friendly attitude towards GVC/Entains's GVC/Entain, with the support of Chairman Nuñez, had very harshly cross-examined me for 18 hours over four day as part of their strategy to convert the proceedings into a war of attrition to wear me out mentally and financially and weaponising my mental illness against me. This harsh cross-examination potentially could be a criminal offence and profoundly affected me. On top of this, I had to sit face to face with my workplace bullies while in front of a hostile Chairman, which did not help either. At the end of the ten-day hearing, I was completely and utterly exhausted and not capable anymore to start all over again because new evidence had appeared. These two paragraphs in Judge Yeats' judgment seem to go beyond bias. It looks like Judge Yeats is choosing sides to help GVC/Entain by glossing over their unsavoury practices and protect Chairman Nuñez against criticism.

- Still in this judgment, Judge Yeats stated that the Employment Tribunal was established as per the law:
20. The functionality of the Employment Tribunal. The appellant asserts that the Employment Tribunal is not functional or impartial. He bases this assertion on the fact that only a small number of lawyers act as Chairpersons for fees which he says are far below their usual charge out rates. Further, that the fees allowed in any particular case are decided by a “politically appointed” Director of Employment and this creates a system which is “open to amateurism, abuses, favouritism, bias, corruption and even political interference.” 21. The short answer to this is that the tribunal in this claim was properly constituted according to the law. Any complaint about the adequacy of the legal framework establishing the Employment Tribunal and its functionality is not a matter for this appeal. The same applies to the appellant’s complaints that the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction over claims involving employers’ breaches of their duty of trust and confidence or for tortious claims. The appeal with which this court is concerned is an appeal from the decision of the Chairman of the 9 December 2021 on points of law. Judge Yeats seems to refer here to the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Procedure) Rules 2016. Judge Yeats, unfortunately forgets to mention what the Gibraltar Constitution Order 2006 says about this matter:
8.-(8) Any court or other authority required or empowered by law to determine the existence or extent of any civil right or obligation shall be established by law and shall be independent and impartial; and where proceedings for such a determination are instituted by any person before such a court or authority, the case shall be given a fair hearing within a reasonable time.
This shows that the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Procedure) Rules 2016 falls short of the constitutional requirements. The payments for an Employment Tribunal Chairperson were, as per the Employment Tribunal (Remuneration) Regulations 2016: £100 for a judgment and £200 per hearing day. Such ridiculously low pay is disincentivising and does not attract quality lawyers. Secure and appropriate compensation for judges is a recognized component of judicial independence. This high compensation must ensure public confidence in the independence of Judges as well as attract high-quality legal talent to the multiple levels of courts. An April 2019 advert from the Judicial Services Commission for two Supreme Court Judges mentions that the posts are pensionable with an annual salary of £134,821. Another advert from December 2023 mentions a salary of just under £140,000 plus pension scheme. Mr Nuñez, with his one-man law firm, must be way below this income and is possibly struggling to make ends meet at the end of each month. I know several local lawyers personally in this same situation. It raises serious questions about Mr Nuñez's independence but Judge Yeats, again, defends him, showing bias.

- During a preliminary hearing for my second appeal, Judge Yeats suggested to me that the appeal could be done without a transcript of the Tribunal final hearing but then, to my utter astonishment, dismissed my appeal because there was no transcript. This happened although in his first appeal judgment Judge Yeats had concluded that there was a prima facie case. Judge Yeats did not consider the Court's Registrar's unconstitutional refusal to pay for a transcript although it was accepted that I fully qualified for Legal Assistance. I had brought this constitutional issue to Judge Yeats' attention in a preliminary hearing. The Registrar's refusal was the reason why there was no transcript in the second appeal, a fact which heavily advantaged GVC/Entain, which raises very serious questions about the Registrar's intentions. The issue with the transcript was sorted out after an intervention from the UK Government, unfortunately the transcript only became available after my second appeal was already dismissed. Judge Yeats seemed to have acted protectively towards the Registrar and potentially helped to cover up the Registrar's unconstitutional refusal to provide a transcript, which went against the equality of arms principle. The Registrar as well acts as a Judge from time to time, which seems to indicate a tendency by Judge Yeats to have a certain loyalty to his fellow Judges and to try to protect them against embarrassment whenever possible, like he did with Chairman Nuñez. This protection has always worked to my detriment and against the interests of Justice. It has always favoured GVC/Entain, showing bias.

- At the end of the second appeal, Judge Yeats provided a costs order of £7,000 to be paid by me, which was completely unreasonable seen the background of the situation. Judge Yeats must have been very well aware of the merits of my case and the unreasonableness of Chairman Nuñez's judgment. This costs order helped GVC/Entain and their attempts to make me give up on my claims by wearing me out mentally and financially. This unreasonable costs order shows bias. A Judge has a wide discretion on the issue of costs under CPR 44.2 and there is no legal requirement to issue a costs order. A local Court of Appeal case 2018/CACIV/007 Gibfibre Ltd v The Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) proves this: no costs order was issued as the Judges found that the losing party had acted reasonably and in good faith. Judge Yeats' costs order makes it look, again, as if he has chosen sides and favours my ex-employer, against the interests of Justice.

- Regarding the court case about the rental dispute, Judge Yeats refused to order a witness summons for Ms ***********. This was communicated to me on 20 February 2025 by the Registrar of the Court:
Dear Mr Van Thienen,

I refer to the application filed on 29 January 2025 for the court to issue a witness summons for Ms ***********. The judge has considered your application.

The judge considers that no application (using the form you have used) is required for the issue of a witness summons if it is for the giving of evidence (or production of documents) at the hearing itself and if it is done more than 7 days before the hearing – see Civil Procedure Rules 34.2 and 34.3. You simply have to file the summons in duplicate in Form N20, a copy of which is attached. Once it is filed it will be served by the Court Bailiffs.

You should, however, note the provisions of CPR 34.7 which requires that a witness must be offered a reasonable sum for travel expenses and a sum by way of compensation for loss of time. Any sum offered has to be deposited in Court pursuant to CPR 34.6.

Best wishes

Karl Tonna
Registrar
This witness statement from Ms *********** should have been part of the normal discovery and disclosure process as Ms *********** was heavily involved in the dispute. That Judge Yeats wants me to pay money, knowing that I am completely penniless, would make it impossible for me to get this evidence. This would be to the benefit of the other party as it would prevent cross-examination of an important witness. Judge Yeats' decision is legally wrong and biased.

- Judge Yeats' approach has caused delays, which made that I cannot pay rent anymore. Now he presides over this rent dispute, which is a conflict of interest and it could be manipulated to hide any wrongdoings in the employment case. As shown above, Judge Yeats has a tendency to protect his fellow Judges. My landlord was Mr ***********, a Justice of the Peace who intentionally defrauded me. It is possible that Judge Yeats will want to protect Mr ***********, a fellow Judge. This makes Judge Yeats unsuitable to preside over this case.

The selective use of discretion and the many examples of bias, to my detriment, create the impression that Judge Yeats is on a leash and that he has been told what to do. Judge Yeats has as well failed to keep in mind that the very limited experience of a litigant in person might damage his chances to win his case and damages the important principle of Equality of Arms and constitutional right to get a fair trial within a reasonable time, which is as well part of my Human Rights. The McGrail inquiry shows that certain politicians interfere in areas where they have no constitutional power. It cannot be excluded that Judges are being politically influenced, as happened with the former police commissioner.

Regarding bias: the test is whether a fair minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, concludes that there is a real possibility that the Judge was biased. I strongly believe that this test has been passed significantly. I see no other option than that Judge Yeats recuses himself in the interests of justice and that another Judge is appointed. The recently employed Judge Happold has no links to Gibraltar and therefore looks like the best candidate to take over and restore the independence of the proceedings.

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