Tribunal Evidence Collaboration Framework
Reconstructed v1.0
Status: Retrospectively documented from the original working conversations.
Purpose
This framework records the principles that governed the collaboration between the claimant and AI while preparing, organising and analysing material relating to the Employment Tribunal case.
The framework was not formally written before the work began. Its principles developed through discussion and were repeatedly applied during the preparation of the case.
This document therefore does not describe what should ideally have been done, nor does it attempt to introduce safeguards identified only with hindsight.
A principle belongs in this framework only where the surviving conversation history demonstrates that it formed part of the agreed or established working approach.
Absence of a principle from this document does not mean that principle is unimportant. It means only that it was not established as part of this collaboration.
1. Evidence before conclusion
A conclusion must remain distinguishable from the evidence supporting it.
Where evidence raises a possible issue, that issue may be identified and investigated, but it must not be presented as established merely because it appears plausible.
Assertions requiring documentary support should be tested against the available documents.
Where supporting evidence cannot be found, that absence must remain visible.
2. Fact, interpretation and allegation must remain distinguishable
The claimant's account, documentary evidence, interpretation of that evidence and legal significance are related but are not interchangeable.
The AI may identify relationships, inconsistencies or possible implications, but must not convert interpretation into fact.
An allegation by either party remains an allegation unless independently established.
3. Evidence must be considered in context and chronology
Documents should not be considered only in isolation.
Where the significance of an event depends upon what happened before or after it, the relevant chronology should be reconstructed.
Later information must not automatically be projected backwards.
Equally, a later formal diagnosis, decision or document must not automatically be treated as the first point at which the underlying circumstances could have been known.
4. Employer knowledge and formal diagnosis are different questions
When examining health or disability issues, formal diagnosis must not automatically be treated as the sole measure of employer knowledge.
Contemporaneous records, Occupational Health material, communications, observed symptoms, workplace adjustments, medical appointments and other evidence may be relevant to determining what was known or reasonably apparent at an earlier time.
The existence of those indicators does not itself establish a diagnosis.
5. Medical research does not establish individual medical causation
General medical information may be used to understand possible relationships, identify questions and interpret the significance of existing evidence.
It must not be used to diagnose the claimant or establish individual causation that requires clinical evidence.
Photographs and other observable material may be described for what they visibly show. Medical conclusions must remain separate unless supported by appropriate evidence.
6. Evidence from both parties must be tested
Respondent documents must not be reviewed solely for material favourable to the claimant.
Review should identify:
- material supporting the claimant;
- material supporting the respondent;
- admissions;
- contradictions;
- procedural or evidential gaps;
- weaknesses in the claimant's position;
- uncertainties; and
- matters requiring further evidence.
Evidence does not cease to be relevant because it is inconvenient.
7. Admissions and adverse facts must not be hidden
Known adverse facts should be acknowledged rather than avoided.
Where the claimant accepts that an event occurred, the analysis should distinguish disagreement about the event itself from disagreement about its cause, significance, treatment or consequence.
A rebuttal must not obtain apparent strength by removing admissions, uncertainty or missing proof.
8. Conclusions remain revisable
An interpretation is provisional where further evidence may alter it.
When new evidence contradicts or materially changes an earlier assessment, the assessment should be corrected rather than defended merely because it was reached first.
Previous conclusions may therefore be strengthened, weakened or abandoned as the evidence develops.
9. Missing evidence is a gap, not automatically proof
The absence of an expected document may be significant and should be recorded.
However, failure to locate a document does not by itself establish that the event documented by it did not occur.
Missing evidence should therefore generate a question, disclosure issue or evidential gap rather than an invented answer.
10. Memory should not control the evidence
Personal recollection may identify where to investigate, but documentary review should not depend upon the claimant remembering every document or event correctly.
Indexes, chronology, evidence maps and structured review should be used where the volume of material makes memory unreliable.
Where memory and contemporary records differ, the difference should be examined rather than silently reconciled.
11. Working documents and source evidence perform different functions
Not every preserved document needs to appear in every submission.
Material required to explain or plead an issue should be distinguished from evidence retained for later disclosure, witness evidence, rebuttal or hearing preparation.
Working analysis may organise and connect evidence but does not become source evidence merely because it exists within the case file.
12. The claimant remains the source of personal evidence
AI may help organise chronology, identify relevant evidence, improve readability and structure working documents.
It must not invent the claimant's recollection, feelings, motivations or personal experience.
Where a document requires the claimant's own evidence, particularly a witness statement, missing personal content should be obtained from the claimant rather than generated on their behalf.
13. Research informs questions; evidence answers them
External legal, medical or procedural research may identify potentially relevant principles, comparisons or questions.
Similarity between research material, another case or the claimant's circumstances does not establish that the same conclusion applies.
Research should therefore be mapped back to the individual evidence before being relied upon.
14. Structure must aid examination, not determine the answer
Evidence may be organised into chronology, themes, contradictions, claims and evidential chains to make a large case manageable.
That structure is an analytical tool.
It must not force evidence into a predetermined narrative or conceal material that does not fit the emerging theory of the case.
15. The opposing narrative must be tested, not merely rejected
Where the respondent provides an explanation, chronology or characterisation of events, it should be compared with the underlying evidence.
The claimant's alternative account must be subjected to the same test.
Where either account depends upon separating events that may be connected, or connecting events that may be independent, that relationship should itself become an evidential question.
16. Uncertainty should remain visible
Where the available material cannot establish an answer confidently, the correct result is uncertainty.
The AI should distinguish between:
Established → Supported → Possible → Disputed → Unsupported → Unknown
rather than collapsing those states into a single confident narrative.