CHALLENGE FAIR WORK
If you have participated in a Fair Work Commission (‘FWC’) hearing about an employment law issue and you are unsatisfied with the result, you might wish to appeal.
Changing your assessment
An appeal of a decision of the Fair Work Commission is normally heard by the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission.
This means that three members of the Commission will hear the matter and consider the appeal before making their own decision.
Appeal book
Once the Appellant has submitted their notice of appeal to the Fair Work Commission, they have seven days to create and submit an appeal book.
An appeal book must contain all the documents from the Commission which are relevant to the appeal. This means that an Appellant must include:
- any order the Commission made about the case;
- a copy of the decision and the reasons;
- a transcript from the original case or a relevant extract from the transcript; and
- a copy of each document from the original proceedings that relates to the reason for your appeal.
After providing the appeal book to the Commission, the Appellant must send a copy of the appeal book to the other party.
Hearing before the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission
Once the notice of appeal and the appeal book have been received, the Commission may ask the parties for more information before the hearing.
The Commission will consider whether an actual hearing is required or whether they can make their decision ‘on the papers’. This means they will make their decision based on the written information provided to them.
More often than not, it can be difficult to know whether you have grounds for appeal. Even if you think there has been a mistake of law or fact, the Commission might decide it was not a big enough error to allow an appeal.
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