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 Gibraltar's press says about the Employment Tribunal

Since 2021, the Gibraltar Chronicle has written several times about the failings of the Employment Tribunal in Gibraltar. This resulted in 2023 in the appointment of a full-time Chairperson and a half-time Chairperson to preside over Employment Tribunal cases. This in itself is an admission by Gibraltar's Government that the Tribunal set up by the EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL (CONSTITUTION AND PROCEDURE) RULES 2016, which commenced on 13 October 2016, was not working and victims of unscrupulous employers did not get access to Justice.
Unfortunately, the new appointments have not solved any of the problems and a backlog of cases continues to exist. The Tribunal system continues to be unworkable and has very serious failings which no one wants to solve. Based on my own experiences and input of others affected, I sent an opinion piece to the Gibraltar Chronicle on 6 May 2024. Although I discussed the content of this opinion piece during a 2 hour meeting with the Chronicle editor, the opinion piece was never published. The last article on the list below, is about the Justice for Carolina Action Group which delivered a petition with over 5,000 signatures demanding an independent inquiry in a criminal case. There clearly is not only a list of very serious problems with the Employment Tribunal, but these issues affect the whole legal system in Gibraltar.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 2 October 2021
Plans to enlarge the panel of chairpersons available to hear employment tribunals were yesterday welcomed by the chairman of the Law Council, Kenneth Navas, during a speech at the Ceremonial Opening of the Legal Year. Mr Navas said the tribunal was dealing with a hefty workload of increasingly complex cases, often where employees with no knowledge of the law represented themselves. He said this combination of factors was stretching the tribunals resources and the availability of people to hear cases. The difficulty in progressing claims against certain large employers, including the State, continues due to frequent conflicts of interests with panel chairpersons, he said. These claims continue to make up much of the current backlog. For those reasons, Mr Navas welcomed imminent plans by the Ministry of Employment to enlarge the tribunal panel of chairpersons and perhaps appoint some part-time chairpersons to tackle backlogs. He pointed too to plans to appoint a President of the Tribunal and establish permanent premises, with a suitable location being actively sought. The truth is that litigation, particularly where conditional fee arrangements are not available or appropriate, is fast becoming unaffordable for most people of modest incomes. Some people are not eligible for public funding and some areas of law simply do not attract it.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 4 October 2021
The GSD has highlighted the backlog of cases waiting to be heard by the Employment Tribunal and urged the Gibraltar Government to tackle the situation. The Opposition said there were 34 claims lodged with the Industrial Tribunal awaiting the appointment of a chairperson, seven of which dated to 2019 and 18 of which went back to last year. The Opposition said the Employment Tribunal was designed to provide speedy and inexpensive resolution of employment cases, but that without the appointment of a chairman to hear cases they cannot even commence. It said too that many former employees who issued proceedings in the tribunal represented themselves and could not afford lawyers. Some ex-employees are waiting for the appointment of a chairman to hear their cases since January 2019. That is three months short of three years. This cannot be justified by the Covid crisis. I note that the Government is in the process of recruiting additional chairpersons which will include a full and part time chairpersons. This is welcome news and is aligned with our longstanding position on the need to appoint a permanent Chairperson of the Industrial Tribunal. This would avoid reliance on lawyers who accept appointments on a part time basis as and when their own professional commitments allow which has never been a satisfactory way of approaching the issue. However, the delays in appointments are wholly unreasonable, should never have been allowed and the Government has to get to grip with this and ensure workers have access to justice soonest.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 8 October 2022
Mr Navas also repeated concerns he first raised last year about the backlog of cases in the Employment Tribunal. “The work of the Employment Tribunal continues to grow,” he said. “There has unfortunately been little progress in reducing the backlog of cases awaiting chairperson appointment, despite significant and commendable efforts by the Ministry and Tribunal staff to cajole existing panel chairpersons to take on more cases.” He noted that claims before the tribunal was often complex and placed administrative demands that the court “can simply not comfortably provide”. “My observations are not meant as a criticism of any of the stakeholders, but rather a necessary reflection of the concerns expressed to me by practitioners and parties alike in relation to this important branch of our justice system,” he said.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 28 October 2022
There are currently 59 cases awaiting the appointment of a chairman in the Employment Tribunal, the GSD said on Thursday, adding some people had been waiting more than two years and describing the delays as “completely unacceptable”. The GSD said many cases were “paralysed” at the tribunal and this was affecting the rights of due process of sacked employees. The party was reacting after the Gibraltar Government gave details of the backlog of cases at the Employment Tribunal, including nine cases going back to 2020, 27 cases from 2021 and 23 cases filed this year. “The unacceptable delays in appointing a chairperson in order to deal with applications lodged at the Employment Tribunal is a total failure in our Justice system and equally affects both employers and employees,” said Edwin Reyes, the GSD’s spokesman for employment.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 1 April 2023
The appointments of two new chairpersons for the Employment Tribunal will “help make the service accessible to all” the Government of Gibraltar said on Friday. Gabrielle O’Hagan was appointed as President and Lead Chairperson while Stephen Bossino was appointed as part-time Chairperson. Both were sworn in during a ceremony held at the Convent by the Governor of Gibraltar, Vice Admiral Sir David Steel. The appointments to the Employment Tribunal come some months after the GSD criticised the Gibraltar Government for delays to the system, with 59 cases awaiting the appointment of a chairman in the Employment Tribunal last October. At the time the GSD said some people has been waiting for more than two years to have their cases heard. After a long-running recruitment drive, Ms O’Hagan and Mr Bossino were announced as the new appointments on Friday. Both Chairpersons will be supported by the existing pool of ad-hoc Chairpersons who have been re-appointed for another term of three years, No.6 Convent Place said in a statement.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 3 July 2023
The Justice for Carolina Action Group has again called for independent inquiry into the prosecution of Real Lishman. The complaint follows a court case where Real Lishman was found guilty of manslaughter, after he stabbed his wife Carolina 12 times and served four years in person. A year and a half ago a ‘March for Justice’ to deliver a petition with over 5,000 signatures demanding an independent inquiry into his prosecution. The Group said it wants answers to what happened in the handling of this case. “The Governor, Sir David Steel, The Attorney General, Michael Llamas, The Director of Public Prosecutions, Christian Rocca and the Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo all hide behind the family’s ongoing complaint which has not yet concluded after two years - knowing full well that in any case the resolution of the complaint will not deliver the answers that are sought,” the Group said. “Why is the Complaints Committee, chaired by Sir Peter Caruana, taking so long? What are the reasons for this ongoing silence by those in positions of authority? Is this a case of the establishment closing in to protect itself?” The group said it is calling for an independent inquiry into the handling of this case.

Gibraltar Chronicle - 13th January 2025
Stuart Davies, Unite the Union’s national officer for Gibraltar
The union also has a number of legislative issues it hopes to progress in dialogue with the Government. Among others, they include revisiting anti-bullying legislation in the wake of a high-profile case some years ago which the union lost and which, according to Unite, means “the bar is too high” to bring a bullying case. Another area where Unite hopes to engage with the Government is on reform of the Employment Tribunal so that decisions can be appealed without expensive recourse to the Supreme Court, which is currently the only option for appeal. The union has a hefty fighting fund for legal cases but, in situations where an individual is funding their own Employment Tribunal case and wins, if the employer then appeals to the Supreme Court, the costs of contesting that could become prohibitive. “There’s an access to justice issue there,” Mr Davies said. Unite remains concerned too about delays in the Employment Tribunal, even though it acknowledges progress in denting the backlog of cases. It is concerned too about the impact of conflicts of interest on the timely resolution of employment cases, particularly in the healthcare sector. “We have a current situation where the GHA can’t be sued at the moment because the vast majority of the tribunal chairs will declare themselves as conflicted because, in whatever law firm they currently work for, they do work for the GHA,” Mr Davies said. “So we've got a number of Employment Tribunal claims in against the GHA, but with no one to hear them.” “They're parked until we can find a way around it. I don't think Government is necessarily comfortable with the situation because, from an access to justice issue, it does create a problem.”

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