The Ministry appealed an Employment Tribunal decision that Ms Parry's dismissal was unfair. The Ministry advanced five grounds of appeal, one of which related to an employee‟s right to be legally represented. In November 2009, Ms Parry was dismissed from her job on grounds of gross misconduct. When appealing that decision, she asked if she could be represented at the appeal hearing by a solicitor. Although this request was declined, representations were made on her behalf by her solicitors. When the appeal proved unsuccessful, Ms Parry took her case to an Employment Tribunal, which found that her dismissal was unfair, partly due to lack of legal representation.

The EAT allowed the Ministry‟s appeal on all grounds, including that concerning legal representation. The EAT outlined and affirmed the principles laid out in R (on the application of G) v Governors of X School [2011] UKSC 30 and Mattu v University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust [2012] EWCA Civ 641. The EAT rejected the appellant‟s submission, per G v Governors, that there had to be two sets of proceedings for Art 6 to be engaged – an internal disciplinary hearing as well as an external body to rule on whether Ms Parry could continue to practice in her profession of District Probate Registrar. The EAT held that Art.6 was engaged where „a civil right is adjudicated upon in a manner which is dispositive of the right to practise one‟s chosen profession, whether that be in one set of proceedings, in two or in more if there is a sufficient link between the proceedings‟.

The Ministry had argued that, unlike in the case of a teacher or doctor, in whose cases a further body may give a decision affecting their civil right to carry out their profession, the disciplinary proceedings which had resulted in Ms Parry‟s dismissal merely decided her right to retain her job. Mrs Parry argued that she was an office-holder, and as such her removal from the list of Probate Registrars was indeed equivalent to an order by the GMC or the ISA. Her removal, she argued, thus represented a legal, as opposed to merely practical, bar to re-employment as a Probate Registrar. As no material relating to the importance of the list was placed before the original Tribunal, and it could therefore not rule on this issue, it should therefore not have decided as it did whether or not Art. 6 did indeed apply to the disciplinary proceedings. The matter was remitted to be heard by a new Tribunal. http://bit.ly/ZPThrp