Disciplinary proceedings in sports: Magomu woes cast a spotlight into them
IVAN OJAKOL
What you need to know:
Sports bodies being the regulators of their sports have every right to rein in indiscipline.
The manner in which Uganda Rugby Union has conducted its disciplinary proceedings over Ivan Magomu in the last couple of weeks has gotten this columnist thinking. This piece does not dive into the specificity of the Ivan Magomu matter (some gleanings here and there), but is a general commentary on sports disciplinary proceedings especially drawing from best practices in the professional world.
Sports bodies being the regulators of their sports have every right to rein in indiscipline. Discipline is a fulcrum of sports and is a wide concept that could mean many things from match-fixing, sexual harassment, breaches of Laws of the Game, social media posts among others. These sports bodies exercise a disciplinary jurisdiction over participants in the sports discipline that they preside over under some contractual arrangement; Constitutions, Players Codes of Conduct and/or Tournament Manuals et al.
In professional sports settings, the rules on disciplinary proceedings often have detailed rules that clearly lay out particular and well-defined punishments for different breaches of the rules. Punishments will range from mere “slaps on the wrists” for minor breaches to more serious ones like points deductions, relegation and or even expulsions from sports competitions.
Many a time the rules of these sports bodies in the professional world state that decisions from their disciplinary proceedings are not appealable to Court or elsewhere. However over time, a supervisory jurisdiction from the Courts by way of Judicial Review especially has taken root as this columnist wrote in Saturday Monitor of 24th August, 2024, “A Ugandan Court says that sports governing bodies are amenable to Judicial Review”. The Courts refused to sit back and look on because disciplinary proceedings must be exercised in line with the law. They must act rationally and proportionally. There should not be bias, whether actual or implicit. The impact of disciplinary proceedings can be far-reaching in as far as they affect one’s ability to earn a living and stand in the way of a sport’s team’s chances at success therefore sports bodies which are private bodies can be subjected to public Courts.
In English football, they realized the delicate nature of disciplinary proceedings that they even established an Arbitration mechanism to supervise disciplinary proceedings under the FA Rules, the famous Rule K of the FA Rules. A 2004-2005 seminal decision in Bradley Vs. The Jockey Club that engendered the “Bradley rules” catapulted this revolution.
Regarding bias, due to the amateur nature of sports in our parts of the world or even the “voluntary” running of sports bodies, there will perhaps be a smaller pool to choose from as far as people willing to serve sports is concerned. It is a usual thing to have the same people involved in the day to day running of a sports discipline also sitting on panels of Disciplinary Committees of Sports Federations and Associations. There is a legal principle in law that prohibits one from being a Judge in their own case. The independence of these Disciplinary Committees is paramount and there should be clear, transparent and well-laid out rules governing the selection criteria of their members. Panel appointments should be open to challenge.
Limitations on representation or legal representation are commonplace. This impacts negatively on the right to fair hearing, a non-derogable right.
Increasingly, there are calls to open up sports disciplinary proceedings as they are not your usual type of disciplinary hearings. These ones have an impact on the public-the sports fan as opposed to say an employment disciplinary hearing. The England Cricket Board Independent Cricket Disciplinary Commission’s decision about allegations of racism in Yorkshire Cricket opened this Pandora’s box and concluded that sports disciplinary proceedings should be opened up to the public especially where they are in public interest. A Pirates fan whose team captain is facing disciplinary proceedings should be allowed upon request to attend the said hearings.
Space limitations do not allow this columnist to exhaust everything regarding sports disciplinary proceedings, but with the above and the Ivan Magomu example, the law and principles of natural justice have to be followed to the letter if our sports governing bodies are to avoid being embarrassed in Court going forward.
Ojakol is a Sports Lawyer, Partner at Matrix Advocates
and Law Lecturer at IUEA
Email: [email protected]
Contacts:0791683986/0787261019
