ABSTRACT
It was noted above that an attempt was made during the passage of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to introduce an amendment requiring legally qualified chairs of exclusion appeal panels. At present only a small minority of panel members have legal qualifications (6 per cent in our survey). The principal arguments for having a lawyer chair are that it would ensure greater adherence to the judicial approach that appears often to be lacking, better attention to detail, a more effective weighing-up of evidence, a fairer procedure in that the governors’ case for not reinstating would be properly tested by the panel, and that reasons for decisions would be more likely to be adequate and properly worded. It would also help to ensure a more appropriate and skilful handling of child witnesses than, as we shall see in Chapter 9, happens at present. Finally, it would also make it more likely that the law is correctly applied. While the Council on Tribunals has consistently argued that exclusion appeal cases should be transferred to the lawyer-chaired Special Educational Needs Tribunal, noting the fact that many excluded children have special educational needs, it considers that the seriousness of exclusion cases and the need to ensure greater fairness are such that the introduction of lawyer chairs for exclusion appeal panels would be a suitable alternative (Council on Tribunals 1992: para. 1.28; 1993: para. 2.15; 1998: para. 1.27).
