Your 4 December issue contained an advertisement for chairmen of Employment Tribunals (see [2008] Gazette, 4 December, 22). The advertisement reads: ‘Can you help put right the wrongs? We all know somebody who has been unfairly treated at work, but we often feel helpless to do anything about it. If you are a barrister, solicitor or fellow of Ilex and have a passion for upholding the rights of workers, then why not consider a move into the Employment Tribunal?'

This advertisement does much to explain the gross and deeply ingrained bias characteristic of these tribunals. What would be said of an advertisement which read: ‘We all know employers who have been unfairly treated by staff members… If you have a passion for upholding the rights of small businesses why not consider a move?’

The advertisement was placed by the Judicial Appointments Commission. Even this increasingly politicised body should be aware that judges are supposed to be impartial, free from preconceptions and above all dispassionate. What kind of judge is it who embarks on a case with a passionate assumption that one of the parties has been wronged and that the other is to blame?

Martin Mears Norwich