Introduction
When you are named in a general protections dismissal application, you may want to challenge the application. To do this, you need to tell us why you think the employee is not eligible to apply to us.
Content
Common reasons you may object
You may object if you believe the employee is not eligible to make a general protections dismissal application to us. This is sometimes called a ‘jurisdictional objection’. You can only object for specific legal reasons about our powers to resolve the dispute. For example, if:
- the employee is not protected by law
- the employee has started another case about their dismissal
- the employee applied more than 21 days after the alleged dismissal took effect.
How to object
If you are the employer or another respondent named in the application, we will ask you to complete the response form. Include your objection in this response form.
We will decide the issue before we try to resolve the dispute.
If you believe there was no dismissal
We don’t need to decide whether the employee was dismissed before we try to resolve the dispute.
If you think the employee was not dismissed, you can explain this in your response form.
If the dispute is not resolved at the Commission, you may raise this argument later if:
- the employee applies to a court, or
- both parties agree to consent arbitration at the Commission.