Can you challenge who decided your case?

Can you challenge who decided your case?

You’ve been told who’s hearing your disciplinary or grievanceA formal complaint raised by an employee against their employer, triggering a legal obligation to investigate and respond., and something about it doesn’t sit right. That unease might come from recognising them from somewhere unexpected, or from a sense that their mind is already made up. You’re allowed to question that. Sometimes, you’re right to.

What impartial actually means here

Whoever hears your case, whether that’s one manager or a panel, has to come to it without a personal stake in the outcome and without having already decided what happened. That’s not a courtesy. Fairness depends on it.

This breaks down in a few recognisable ways:

• A personal relationship between the decision-maker and a witness, or with your manager, that hasn’t been disclosed to you.
• The same person who investigated the allegation also deciding the outcome, effectively acting as prosecutor and judge in one.
• A decision that’s clearly already been made before you’ve had a proper chance to give your side.

None of these need to be dramatic to matter. A decision-maker who’s friendly with a witness, or who treats your explanation as a formality rather than something that could actually change the outcome, is enough to make a process unfair.

Signs to watch for

• You ask who’s on the panel and get a vague answer, or the names change without explanation close to the hearing.
• The person deciding your case is the same person who ran the investigation or wrote up the allegations.
• Questions at the hearing are about confirming what’s already been written down, not about what actually happened.
• Your explanation is heard but the outcome letter reads as though it was drafted before the meeting.

What to do if you spot it during a live process

Ask, directly and in writing, who is deciding your case and whether they have any personal connection to anyone involved. You’re entitled to know this before the hearing, not find out afterwards.

If you find a genuine conflict, put it in writing and ask for a different decision-maker. It might be a relationship, a reporting line, or the same person wearing both the investigator and decision-maker hat. Keep your request factual. State what the conflict is and why it affects your case, rather than simply saying you don’t trust the outcome.

Your employer doesn’t have to agree that a conflict exists just because you’ve raised one. But a reasonable employer should take the request seriously and explain their answer either way. A flat refusal with no reasoning is itself worth noting down.

What happens when this goes wrong

Two recent tribunal decisions show what this looks like in practice. In one case, the chair of a disciplinary panel had an undisclosed personal friendship with a key witness, something the employee only found out afterwards. The tribunal found the dismissal unfair because of it (a secret friendship on a disciplinary panel). In another, the employer treated the outcome as settled because staff were confident about what had happened, and ran the process as a formality rather than a genuine chance to be heard (an employer who couldn’t skip a fair process). In both cases, being confident of the facts wasn’t the problem. Skipping a fair process to get there was.

If it’s already happened

If the process is over and you believe the decision-maker wasn’t impartial, this is a legitimate ground for an internal appeal. Set out specifically what the conflict was, when you became aware of it, and why it affected the outcome. A vague sense that the process felt unfair is hard to act on. A specific, named issue is not.

If an internal appeal doesn’t resolve it, this can also form part of an unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... claim under the Employment Rights Act 1996The primary piece of legislation setting out employees rights in the UK, including the right not to be unfairly dismissed, the right to a written statement of employment particulars, and rights relati..., or a discrimination claim, at an employment tribunalAn independent court that hears disputes between employees and employers. It is free to bring a claim as a claimant, and most hearings take place in public.. You currently have three monthsThe standard time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims, running from the date of the act complained of. Because the limit is three months less one day, you should not wait until what fee... less one day from the date your employment ended, or from the act you’re complaining about, to start a claim. That rises to six months for claims from 1 October 2026, under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Notify ACASThe Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. A public body that provides free, impartial guidance on workplace rights and disputes, and runs the mandatory early conciliation process before any ... for early conciliationA free process run by ACAS that you must go through before you can submit a claim to an employment tribunal. ACAS contacts your employer to see if a settlement can be reached, and the process pauses y... before that deadline and the clock pauses until conciliation ends, with at least a month left afterwards to bring your claim.

Getting advice

If you’re heading into a process and something about who’s deciding it concerns you, or a decision has already gone against you and you think the process wasn’t fair, it’s worth talking it through with someone who can look at your specific situation. We offer a fixed-price call where we can talk through where you stand and what your realistic options are.

You’re not being difficult by asking who’s deciding your case, or by expecting them to have no reason to want a particular outcome. That’s simply what a fair process requires.