11. Going to an employment tribunal

If you want to make a complaint under the Race Relations Act, you must send your complaint either on form ET1 or in a letter to the Regional Office of Employment Tribunals. You can get this form from:

• jobcentres; or
• the Commission for Racial Equality.

The employment tribunal will then decide whether there are 'reasonable grounds' for going ahead with a claim. You must make your complaint within three months, minus one day, from when the discrimination first happened. The cost of going to a tribunal is low. Even if you lose your case, you will not have to pay the other side's costs unless the tribunal decides your claim was unreasonable.

If you do want to take a complaint to an employment tribunal, you would normally send a special form, called a 'Section 65' questionnaire, to the employer. You can get this form from:

• jobcentres;
• your local benefits office; or
• the Commission for Racial Equality.

The form has questions where the employer will give more reasons for the treatment you received. For example, if you believe that you didn't get a job because of your race, you can ask for details of the employer's selection procedures, and of the qualifications and experience of the person who got the job, to see how they compare with your own.

You must send the form to the employer within three months of when you first knew about the discrimination, or no more than 21 days after your complaint was received by the employment tribunal.

You don't have to use the 'Section 65' procedure, but it will normally help your case. In the same way, the employer doesn't legally have to fill in the form, but if they don't, it may harm their case. And if you do use it, you can still withdraw your complaint before your case is dealt with.

You or the employer can appeal against the Tribunal's decision to the Employment Appeals tribunal. But you can appeal only on whether the law was applied correctly, not on whether you thought the tribunal's decision was fair. You have 42 days after the decision to start an appeal.