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?

Is it possbile to have corruption in the Employment Tribunal in Gibraltar?

What do others think about the set up of the Employment Tribunal in Gibraltar? Several press articles indicate that the Tribunal system is not working. The way Gibraltar's Employment Tribunal has been set up is remarkable. There were no full time employed Tribunal Judges or Chairpersons. Instead a handful of local lawyers, running their own law firms or working for a law firm, were on a list of “volunteers” who occasionally played Judge for a very minimal fee, £100 for writing a judgment and £200 for a hearing day, way below their regular hourly rates. Such ridiculously low pay is disincentivising and does not attract quality lawyers. The reality is that in Gibraltar all 230 or so lawyers know each other very well. When some of these individuals then occasionally function as a Tribunal Chairperson, this could create a system which is open to amateurism, abuses, favouritism, bias, corruption and political interference.

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, the "volunteer" Tribunal Chairman for my case runs his own one-man law firm. He must be way below the income of a Judge 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.

The principle of open justice means that every single Tribunal judgment has to be published online. A year ago, the Tribunal's web page shows that there must be 399 cases falling under the 2016 legislation at that moment in time. Only 27 led to a full judgment following a hearing, this is 6.8%. In 146 cases, or 36.6%, the claim was withdrawn, which could mean that a settlement was reached or the disadvantaged employee gave up. This leaves 226 cases, a staggering 56.6%, of which no information is published. This obviously does not achieve the open justice referred to. All cases should be published to achieve transparency and accountability, and even more important, the published judgments are the only local source of case law for litigants in person. In April 2023, a full time Chairperson was appointed for the first time in the Tribunal but this did not solve the problems. To me, it looks like the wrong person has been appointed. No improvements in the backlog of cases has been made, according to the Tribunal's web page, 2 years after the full time Chairperson was appointed.

I am not alone with my opinion about the flaws in Gibraltar's legal system, a very good example is the recent support email sent by the local charity Dignity At Work Now (DAWN), which has supported me throughout the last 7 years, and continues to do so: reference email from DAWN.

The following screenshots are from May 2024. The first one is my post in the Facebook group of DAWN. The second screenshot is a reaction on my post by Charles Gomez, a well respected lawyer in Gibraltar and famous for assisting the ex-police commissioner during the McGrail inquiry.

Edwin Reyes sits in Gibraltar's Parliament as Opposition spokesperson for employment. He has brought up the Employment Tribunal problems and failures over the last few years and he follows my case. As the Government has an absolute majority in Parliament, Mr Reyes' options to do more are very limited.

Vice Admiral Sir David Steel KBE, DL was Governor of Gibraltar between June 2020 and June 2024. He was as well the Royal Navy's Director of Legal and Personnel Services and attended Durham University where he read law, graduating in 1983. In his farewell interview with local television station GBC, the Governor could have talked about hundreds of subjects, but he specifically highlighted Employment Tribunal problems. The Governor spoke on behalf of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) whom I have sent several emails over the years to expose the long list of problems I was experiencing.

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