AO Hall partner Advocate Elaine Gray appeared as a fake witness. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0849963)

The AO Hall mock employment tribunal, hosted in conjunction with the GTA University Centre, not only provided the stage for a role-playing scenario for delegates to watch, but also looked at how employers could avoid being taken to one and what to do if they were served with a tribunal claim.

An interactive question and answer session also let the audience cross-examine the fictional employee Lily White and her former employees Guernsey Grapevine Ltd.

AO Hall partner Advocate Elaine Gray, who played the role of Miss White, said the event, the first of its kind held locally, had been a great success with more than 100 people attending.

‘We achieved exactly what we set out to do with it. Redundancy is the big issue at the moment so it was the most appropriate subject matter, but if we repeat the event again next year, which we are planning to do, then we might look at the introduction of minimum wage legislation or the subject of disability discrimination, both of which when introduced locally could have major impacts.’

The tribunal was designed to show how an employment one works, what happens on the day and how the decisions, which businesses make in the workplace, play out in a tribunal setting.

In this case Miss White was claiming unfair dismissal on the grounds of sexual discrimination, because in her mind she was sacked because she was pregnant.

The decision of the tribunal and that of the audience was that while she was unfairly dismissed, it was not because of the pregnancy once all the details surrounding the redundancy process the company was going through emerged.