This week's opinion

We hope our readers value the content we publish each week. Certainly conversations with colleagues in the profession give us comfort that we seem to be doing things right. But this week we had feedback that shows how influential we can be. Readers may recall Robert Maas’s article ‘In the interests of justice’ (8 November 2018) in which he drew attention to what he saw as serious shortcomings in the way a tribunal had treated an appellant when an appeal went ahead in his absence. The appellant was facing serious allegations of dishonesty and had told the tribunal he could not attend because he was looking after his wife. Arrangements were made for his participation by telephone but as Robert made clear in his article these were unsatisfactory.

In a revised judgment published on 7 December the tribunal said: ‘The tribunal has had its...