By establishing minimum employment standards in Bermuda for the first time, the Employment Act 2000 ("the Act") was a landmark piece of legislation for the Island.

In addition to providing those minimum standards, the Act sets out procedural rules for an aggrieved employee who wishes to complain that he has been unreasonably, wrongfully or unfairly terminated ? or who wishes to complain in respect of a failure by his employer to comply with any provision of the Act. Today, I will address the former case.

Aggrieved employees are required to adhere to any internal grievance or appeals procedure within the employee's organisation, if one exists, before seeking the assistance of the Employment Inspector ("the Inspector") and, ultimately, the Employment Tribunal ("the Tribunal").

A complaint to the Inspector must be made in writing, within three months of the act complained of.

Although there is no guidance in the Act as to how to set out the complaint, I would suggest that it should preferably be in numbered paragraphs, including the full name of the complainant, the full name and address of the employer, the date that the complainant started employment and the date of termination.

The complainant should attach a copy of his most recent statement of employment as this will give details of his position, wages or salary and other information useful to the Inspector and/or the Tribunal. The employee should set out what the basis for the termination was, according to the employer. If the employee is unaware why he was terminated, he can demand to be served with a certificate of termination by the employer setting out the reason for the termination. Once received, that document can be appended to the complaint.

The employee should then concisely set out what his complaint is, i.e. "I should not have been fired because ?" or "my employment was terminated because?."

Once a complaint is received, the Inspector must enquire into it, and may require either the employer or employee to provide information and to produce documents as he specifies. After enquiring into the matter the Inspector will attempt to conciliate between the parties. However, the employer may choose not to take part in any conciliation.

If the Inspector has reasonable grounds to believe that the employer has failed to comply with any provision of the Act, and is unable to effect a settlement between the parties, then the Inspector shall refer the complaint to the Tribunal.

Unfortunately the Act is silent regarding what procedures should be adopted between the referral by the Inspector and the receipt of the complaint by the Tribunal. The Act requires the Tribunal, as soon as possible after receipt of the complaint, to hold a hearing and give the parties or their representatives full opportunity to present evidence on oath and make submissions.

Proceeding to this stage immediately is unsatisfactory for both sides.

The employer may still not know what the case is against him as there is no provision in the Act for the Inspector to provide a copy of the complaint to the employer. Equally, the employer may have a defence to the complaint and the employee should know what that defence is.

Natural justice requires that each party should know the case being brought against them and to be given an opportunity to defend or answer that case. In the absence of any regulations or formal procedures or rules coming from the Tribunal it is difficult for either party to prepare for the hearing.

Trial by ambush in the Supreme Court is a thing of the past not least because the new Supreme Court Rules provide that the "overriding objective" in dispute resolution is to enable the Court to deal with cases justly. In my view, this should also be the "overriding objective" of the Tribunal.

Such an approach would put the parties on an equal footing, save expense and bring about proportionality, and allow any complaint to be dealt with expeditiously and fairly.

In the absence of any regulations or procedural rules from the Tribunal and a defined overriding objective, employees should fill out their written complaint to the fullest extent and, as well as delivering a copy of the complaint to the Inspector, also deliver a copy to the employer.

Employers answering a complaint should deliver a copy of the answer (the employer's defence) to the employee as well as the Inspector. At that time the parties may be ready for the Tribunal to hold a hearing.