Composition of Tribunals
640.This section provides for a President and a Deputy President to be appointed for each part of the United Kingdom. The President will be able to issue directions and will be responsible for deciding the appropriate composition of appeal tribunals either on a case-by-case basis or according to the type of case. All tribunals will be required to include a legally qualified member. But, because of the reducing pool of people with relevant expertise, eg Civilian Defence Volunteers, the requirement for them to include a “service” member of the same gender and rank as the appellant will be removed. Instead, the Lord Chancellor will have a duty to appoint persons with knowledge or experience of service life to the pool of tribunal members and in addition the power also to appoint suitably experienced lay members to the tribunal pool.