The question of whether an Employment Tribunal should accept the employer’s reason for a dismissal has received little attention in studies of the law of unfair dismissal. This shortage of analysis continues even though this stage holds the potential to decide the outcome of the case. The current approach to the interpretation of the five potentially fair reasons for a dismissal is to leave them undefined, allowing employers broad scope to rely upon almost any reason to justify their decision to dismiss an employee. This piece demonstrates how the established view of this stage of the fairness process is a missed opportunity and fails to deliver the full potential of the law of unfair dismissal as it was drafted. In order to protect the fundamental right not to be unjustifiably dismissed, a threshold of substantiality should run throughout the reasons for dismissal—assessed objectively by the Tribunal judge. The assertion of such a threshold is particularly necessary under the open-ended ‘some other substantial reason’ category. The piece turns then to disciplinary dismissals, arguing that the current approach results in fair dismissals, first, for minor misconduct and, second, because of conduct with no connection to the employment relationship. Two solutions to these particular problems will be put forward: a tailored legislative amendment and a contractual reading of the existing section. Both approaches would introduce an element of substantive fairness that is currently absent and place some confines on the scope of the employer’s managerial prerogative by restraining the reasons for which they may fairly dismiss.

中文翻译：

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在不公平解雇法中找错：解雇理由的不成立

在不公平解雇法的研究中，雇佣法庭是否应接受雇主解雇理由的问题很少受到关注。尽管这个阶段有可能决定案件的结果，但这种缺乏分析的情况仍在继续。目前解释解雇的五个潜在公平理由的方法是不定义它们，允许雇主广泛地依赖几乎任何理由来证明他们决定解雇员工的合理性。这篇文章展示了公平过程这一阶段的既定观点如何错失良机，并且未能充分发挥起草时的不公平解雇法的潜力。为了保护不被无理解雇的基本权利，实质性门槛应贯穿解雇理由——由法庭法官客观评估。在开放式的“其他一些实质性原因”类别下，这种阈值的断言是特别必要的。然后文章转向纪律解雇，认为目前的方法导致公平解雇，首先是轻微的不当行为，其次是因为行为与雇佣关系无关。将对这些特定问题提出两种解决方案：量身定制的立法修正案和对现有部分的合同解读。这两种方法都将引入目前不存在的实质性公平因素，并通过限制他们可能公平驳回的理由来限制雇主的管理特权范围。