Section 9 | Preliminary hearings.

(1)If Procedure Rules authorise an employment tribunal to carry out a preliminary hearing, Procedure Rules may make provision for enabling such powers as may be prescribed by the Rules to be exercised in connection with the hearing.^F1

(2)Such Rules may in particular include provision—^F2

(a)for authorising any tribunal carrying out a preliminary hearing ... to make, in circumstances specified in the Rules, an order requiring a party to the proceedings in question... to pay a deposit ... as a condition of—^F3F4F5F6F7F8

(i)continuing to participate in those proceedings, or^F8

(ii)pursuing any specified allegations or arguments, and^F8

(b)for prescribing—

(i)the manner in which the amount of any such deposit is to be determined in any particular case,

(ii)the consequences of non-payment of any such deposit, and

(iii)the circumstances in which any such deposit, or any part of it, may be refunded to the party who paid it or be paid over to another party to the proceedings.

(2ZA)Procedure Rules of the kind mentioned in subsection (2)(a) may not provide for a deposit of an amount exceeding £1,000.^F9

(2A)Procedure Rules may not enable a power of striking out to be exercised in a preliminary hearing on a ground which does not apply outside a preliminary hearing.^F10

(3)The Lord Chancellor may from time to time by order substitute for the sum specified in subsection (2ZA) such other sum as is specified in the order.^F11F12

(4)Repealed^F13

(5)In this section “preliminary hearing” means a hearing in any proceedings before an employment tribunal which takes place at a time before a hearing held for the purpose of determining them.^F14