'Tribunal' is Latin for 'the platform where tribunes sit' — from 'tribunus.' The seat of justice.
A court of justice; a body established to settle disputes or determine questions of law or fact, especially one outside the ordinary court system.
From Latin 'tribūnal' (a raised platform for magistrates, a judgment seat, a court of justice), from 'tribūnus' (a Roman magistrate, originally a leader of a tribe), from 'tribus' (a tribe, one of the three original divisions of the Roman people). The PIE root is *tri- (three), reflecting the tradition that Romulus divided the Roman people into three tribes. A tribunal was the elevated platform from which a tribune administered justice — the word preserves the physical architecture of Roman legal proceedings.
The Roman tribune of the plebs (tribūnus plēbis) was one of the most powerful officials in the Republic — any tribune could veto any action of the Senate or any other magistrate by simply saying 'veto' ('I forbid'). This single word, spoken from the tribunal, could halt the machinery of the Roman state.